Lake Zurich Cemetery offers 'scatter garden' for loved ones' ashes

Soon, Lake Zurich-area residents have another option when choosing their final resting place.

Ela Township's Lake Zurich Cemetery is installing a "scatter garden" where people can have their cremated ashes spread as an alternative to the standard burial, said Jim Johnson, president of the Ela Township Cemetery board and a Lake Zurich village trustee.

The scatter garden will be a fenced-in area of about 300 square feet at the rear of the cemetery, which is located on Church Street across from Lake Zurich High School. It will feature a large stone surrounded by a crushed stone path where ashes can be spread. A bronze plaque on which names and birth and death dates can be engraved will be mounted to one side. Benches, trees, and bushes surround the area.

The cemetery decided last October to create the garden because "burial space is getting to be a problem," Johnson said. There are about 350 plots in use now, with only about 50 more available in the 2-acre cemetery, he said.

"The scatter garden definitely is one of the answers for space," he said.

The garden also provides a relief from expensive burial costs, Johnson said. While the price of a burial plot and interment can easily reach several thousand dollars, spreading a loved one's ashes in the garden will be a fraction of that cost.

The cemetery will charge a $75 to $100 fee to have ashes spread in the garden. To have a name engraved on the bronze plaque, the cemetery will charge another $100, Johnson said.

Scatter gardens have existed in the United States and Illinois for many years and have been fairly popular in the last decade, said Vickie Hand, treasurer at the Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association.

Many people inherit cremated ashes or have them and are not sure what to do with them, and the scatter garden fills that need, Johnson said.

"You have a place to come back and remember them," he said. "You have a place to celebrate their life."

The township spent about $18,000 on the garden, Johnson said. Work on the project began about a month ago and is mostly complete, but the cemetery is still waiting for the fence and bronze plaque to arrive and be installed.