Believe it or not, the best place for trees in Greensboro is the historic cemetery.

Green Hill Cemetery, a historic cemetery in Greensboro, NC, is home to 700 different species of trees. (Photo provided by the North Carolina Department of Cultural and Natural Resources)

Green Hill Cemetery is an off-the-beaten-path gem tucked away in Greensboro's park system. It is home to 700 different species of trees.

Just north of downtown Greensboro, along North Buffalo Creek, there is a string of parks where residents can engage in all kinds of recreational activities, from hiking at the T. Gilbert Pearson Audubon Nature Area and pitching at the Latham Park Tennis Center to playing ball on the Lake Daniel Park basketball court and swimming at the Friendly Park Swim and Tennis Club.

At the center of this vacation wonderland is a public place that is arguably just as beautiful and offers as wide a range of activities as any of the aforementioned parks: the Green Hill Cemetery.

We know a cemetery isn't what comes to mind when you think of relaxing or vacationing in the city, but just check out the Green Hill website to see who might consider a cemetery the perfect place to stop on their day off.

"Visit this beautiful public lot: family vacations, neighborhood walks, lunchtime strolls, genealogists, plein air painters, bench sitters, book readers, practicing pipers, tree and shrub enthusiasts, bird watchers, botanists and anyone who enjoys picnicking in a welcoming recreation area," the website says.

Photo provided by the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery.

Green Hill Cemetery, established around 1877 (although many burials were made on the grounds before that), is Greensboro's oldest actively used public cemetery. Its 51 acres between Battle Ground Avenue, Wharton Street, and Latham Park contain approximately 19,000 burial plots.

But Green Hill has more than just burial plots. This place is a botanist's dream: more than 700 different species of trees and many other plants and shrubs grow here.

Although the park itself is managed by the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department, a group of volunteers came together in 2009 to found the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery, an organization that not only cares about preserving the cemetery itself, but also the legacy of its many stories.

The group offers historical and botanical tours, raising funds to preserve headstones and beautify the cemetery, and encouraging respectful treatment of all who visit.

Photo provided by the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery.

What's the best way to explore Green Hill Cemetery

The Friends of Green Hill Cemetery (FGHC) conduct walking tours of the grounds in the spring and fall, with spring tours taking place just after the leaves appear and fall tours taking place before most of them have fallen.

These tours, which feature the people buried in the cemetery as well as the surrounding flora, have the witty title "Plants and Planted," referring to both the plant life that thrives within the cemetery walls and the human life that no longer exists.

A pair of tours are already scheduled for spring 2024: on May 11 from 10 a.m. to noon, FGHC will lead a tour of the older, southern half of Green Hill, and on May 12 from 2 to 4 p.m., a tour of the northern, newer half.

The cost for the Plants and Planted Plants tour is $5 with no appointment, so just show up. Organizers are asking people to come to the southernmost gate on Wharton Street near Fisher Avenue for the May 11 tour or to the northernmost gate on Wharton Street near Cleveland Street for the May 12 tour. Similar tours are already scheduled for October 26 (south) and October 27 (north) this year.

Among the figures buried in Green Hill Cemetery are O. К. Wysong, co-founder and president of Wysong & Miles at the time of his death in 1918. Living the last 18 years of his life in Greensboro, Wysong was considered an innovator in the world of mechanics.

The manufacturer held 89 patents on woodworking and metalworking equipment when he passed away at the age of 55 after a five-week battle with pneumonia, surprising many of his colleagues who were unaware of the seriousness of his condition.

Green Hill Cemetery is also home to a number of interesting monuments, including a 7-foot-tall marble firefighter statue depicting a firefighter holding a fire hose nozzle connected to a fire hydrant on a 10-foot-tall granite base. The monument, restored in 2021, is dedicated to all Greensboro firefighters who have died in the line of duty over the years.

The monument, which once marked the mass grave of about 300 unknown Confederate soldiers in the cemetery, was removed in 2020 and placed in storage after activists toppled it during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Photo provided by the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery.

Other ways to visit Green Hill

If you're looking for home landscaping ideas, there is perhaps no better showroom than Green Hill Cemetery, where a huge number of mature specimens of little-known woody ornamental plants are gathered in one area.

The FGHC offers landscaping walking tours that highlight some of Green Hill's specimen trees and shrubs of ornamental horticultural value, especially for the home landscape. These dates have not yet been set for 2024, but will be announced on the cemetery's Facebook page as they become available.

For those unable to participate in the walking tours, there are virtual options. The FGHC has prepared a wonderful PowerPoint presentation called "Plants and Plants" that they can provide to any group in Guilford County for a weather-independent indoor presentation. All your group needs is at least 10 people and an enclosed room in which to give the presentation on an HDMI-compatible TV or projector.

Of course, you can take a self-guided tour of the cemetery at any time, and not surprisingly, the FGHC has gone to great lengths to make the process easier and more informative.

The tree inventory project, facilitated by FGHC by a volunteer professional botanist in partnership with City GIS staff and cemetery staff, allows visitors to create an online map of every tree on the cemetery grounds, categorizing them by common name, species, and family name.

Photo provided by the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery.

If you are looking for a specific person in a cemetery rather than a plant, the Greensboro City Burial Index will also help.

For those who just want to try and see what they can find, the organization has also done a thorough job of labeling: small signs have been attached on or near each plant and tree indicating botanical family, genus, species, common name, and place of origin.

The Friends of Green Hill Cemetery will leave you with no excuse not to get out here and see all that this Greensboro gem has to offer.