This is Golf Coast life.

Im Mike Kiniry and thanks for joining us.

When it opened to the public at the end of 2024, Hope Eternal Gardens in Punta Gorda became Southwest Florida's first natural burial cemetery.

That means bodies buried there are not embalmed, and a return to the earth using natural materials and nothing like a concrete or metal box is used like in traditional modern cemeteries, hopes co-founders husband and wife Chris Alonso and Lauren Robie set out to create it.

When Chris's mother was approaching the end of her life, it was her wish to be buried naturally, but there wasn't anywhere local where that could happen.

It took Lauren and Chris more than five years to get the 42 acre site ready to open to the public.

It opened at the end of 2024, but it's more than a cemetery.

It's also a place where families can help transform the land into micro forests and prairies in order to connect with nature while connecting with their loved ones.

And besides being the region's first natural burial cemetery, Hope is now Charlotte County's first accredited level one arboretum.

That means they've met specific standards for curating, maintaining, and labeling the trees and woody plants on the site for public benefit research and education.

Lauren Robie has come down from Punta Gorda today to tell us more.

Welcome to the show, Lauren.

Thank you.

Mike, thank you for having me.

Did I get it right on describing what level one arboretum means.

I believe so, so with level one.

So there's four levels.

And we see the level one as the foundation for us to eventually become a level four, which is the most rigorous, the most.

You know, you have to have certain staff on site.

The things that we're aiming toward.

We'll get into what the different demarcations are.

I just wanted to make sure I got the basic right.

Yes.

So tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

I will say to listeners if you go to the web post for the show.

Lauren joined us on three song stories a couple of years ago.

So you can get a longer version of her background, but tell listeners a little bit about yourself and kind of what led has led you and your husband to this place that you're in.

Oh man, where to begin?

Yeah, I. Know where to begin.

So my name is Lauren Robie, and, I am a designer.

I'm an I've been an artist since I was.

I self-identified when I was six, and my husband, Chris, is a landscape architect, and we actually met at Miami-Dade County parks.

So in a way, all of these, you know, they always say hindsight is 2020.

And it's been very interesting to kind of look and connect the dots that led to hope.

Hope.

Chris.

Oh, okay.

Well, Chris and I, we are always now that we're looking back, we realize that cemeteries, or memorial landscapes have actually been a part of our both of our past.

I was doing a urban design study abroad in Copenhagen, and we went to this Unesco World Heritage site in Sweden.

It's called the Woodlands Cemetery in Swedish.

It's something that I cannot pronounce.

But it just made such a deep impact on me as, what a landscape can do to psychologically support people going through grief.

There's, for example, they have a children's garden for, you know, for, for little ones who have passed and they're all weeping versions of the plants.

So these are plants that are growing downward instead of soaring upwards.

So they're almost like these like little miniatures within their larger wooded landscape.

So I like, like little details like that just really hit home to me as, like the poetry that a landscape can, can exist within.

And then also it being a Unesco World Heritage Site, this idea of like, well, what if a landscape, how does a, how does a cemetery as a landscape contribute to the larger picture of a community?

So obviously we we honor our community within the landscape, but often their stories are obscured and we're not able to actually see.

We see their name.

We see like, you know, father, son, beloved friend.

And then we see two dates with the dash in the middle.

But that's that's not a life or that's not that doesn't capture the, the depth and magnitude of like the human experience.

And so for us, it's like we sort and I guess this was a really lofty goal, but this idea of like, what if it's this place that truly creates and celebrates and illuminates life?

Yes, it's a landscape where people are buried and put to rest.

But how can we, when we talk about legacy, how can we talk about what that person stood for or what their family thought of them?

Or basically what kind of footprint are they leaving behind or not leaving behind?

So yeah, those are kind of like these big questions that we started off with.

I mentioned in the intro, the thing about, you know, Chris's mother, you know, when, when the idea first came to you guys to, to try to do something like this, did it seem like feasible or insurmountable?

Because I know it took a lot of work, but you're two years in now, so how does it looking back, how does how does the beginning look from this place?

How does it look from this place?

So I think I shared on three song stories.

I was terrified of this project.

I, let's see.

She it was I was explaining to my family.

It's like we said yes to Kina, Chris's mom, when she asked us.

Little did we know that she would be passing away just a few months later.

And once that happened, it was like, oh, the we are now called to action.

Oh my goodness.

I was pregnant with my with my second child.

At that point, I didn't realize that Covid would be happening.

Just you know, he was through in 2020.

So that was right around the corner.

I mean, looking back, it's almost like I don't know how we got through it.

However, one thing that we've talked about as a family is that these are all opportunities that are there opportunities for growth.

And if everything was just given to us, hope wouldn't exist as it does now because we really had to craft and struggle and really, really live in it.

And actually we we've now moved out to the property.

So we are full time, 24 hour stewards.

Are all caretakers.

Yes on yeah, we are all in, in life and then eventually in death we will be all in.

So explain you know, the whole planting micro forests and prairies and stuff like this, and I forget what the word is.

There's a meal.

Miyawaki Miyawaki.

Very good.

I was just totally guessing.

Excellent.

Explain what that means.

And before you explain it, like, is that naturally a part of natural burial cemeteries, or is that just the fusion that you guys have built?

If I can use that word for that.

I like that.

I like that word fusion.

So natural burial cemeteries come in all different.

You made me think of like Asian fusion.

Yeah, I know, that's why when I said it, I'm like, I'm not sure if that word makes sense.

So there's many different flavors of green or shades of green that we talk about.

So there are cemeteries that are like conservation easements or conservation cemeteries that have an easement.

And those are usually existing established mature landscapes.

It's like, okay, go ahead.

Right.

So those those are sort to like like basically they're established.

And then the burials kind of occur within wherever it's allowed.

Gotcha.

In our case, we are introducing this concept because we are starting with a cow pasture and a horse ranch.

That's what the previous use of the property was.

Naturally treeless.

Natural well, for the most part.

Sprinkled.

Yes, yes.

It was maintained for, for the cows, for the cows and the good grasses for the cows.

And so we saw this as an opportunity to create new habitat because it's almost not quite a blank slate, but it's something where we can start.

And, we realized we were actually working on the Gains Memorial landscape design in Charlotte County.

And that's where we first kind of had this idea of the Miyawaki planting.

My husband, Chris, with the parks department in Miami, he had organized several, like tree planting or dune planting events through them, and he had jumpstarted native forest that he knew would work.

What's Miyawaki, in a sentence?

In a okay.

Like, oh my goodness of a very good over there.

Yeah.

It's well it's a you know, I mean I don't know what it is.

Tell me what.

So Miyawaki was developed in the 70s by a by a Japanese botanist last name Miyawaki And basically you're taking very small plant material 18in on center.

So we're talking, like, very close together.

And it's after studying what native habitat is already existing in the area.

So you're supposed to go out and you're supposed to identify species and which ones are naturally happening together.

Also like the percentage of canopy trees, this percentage like the different percentages of the different forest layers.

My husband, he's a landscape architect with over 30 years of experience at this point, and he really spearheaded that part of it.

He also has a background in horticulture.

And so, basically what you're doing is you're piecing together these, these plants, this community that is kind of meant to be together.

And they compete with each other in the first like five years, that the reason they're going.

They're planted so close to each other so they can compete.

And so there will be a certain amount of, of plants that don't make it.

You're forcing sort of competition in order to create harmony.

Yes.

How did I do?

You did beautifully.

And what's been interesting is, the parallel between the plant community and the act of planting with the community, with the community itself and us as human beings, with people exactly like I've learned so much from all the plants, but, it's this idea of, like, all of us, you know, the biodiversity is what makes us stronger and more resilient.

And again, as people, everybody has their strengths.

Everybody has their weaknesses.

And together we're stronger.

We're we're greater than the sum of our parts.

So that's been a really beautiful experience to I think to have first hand, but then also to be able to share with the people, like the families that we've we've helped in, the community that we've.

Helped is the idea that somebody who's going to have a loved one buried there, participates in that kind of planning after they've been laid to rest, or is it the idea that they'll spend time there creating a place where they know they or their loved one will be laid to rest?

All of the above.

Both.

Okay.

Yeah.

So our hope was to create an experience that can meet people wherever they are within their within their journey.

So if somebody is wanting to plan ahead, we greatly encourage them to to go ahead and plant.

Now, we've actually had a significant amount of people who have desired to plan ahead.

More people have wanted to plan ahead than, we've had their called attended cases, but we're basically someone has there's been an unexpected death.

And then, they need to find a solution.

So this is resonated with people and they've, they've come out and planted and we've documented that.

And what's been this will lead us into the Museum of Trees and our arboretum.

Where we're going next.

Where we're going next.

What's been so beautiful about it?

So because of my art background and doing like, photography, and I took a documentary making class in college and all of that just I've been documenting this whole process.

And the Museum of Trees has become this digital.

It's a we've made a, I guess, a web application.

But basically anyone in the world can come and digitally visit Hope and not only see the collection as it is at present, but all of these many different milestones over time.

So you can see what the landscape looked like before there was a planting.

You can see the family or the friends coming together, and with the shovels in the dirt and these little like 18 inch tall trees.

And then you get to see that forest grow exponentially.

And, I mean, I was just at the forest that we planted for my mother in law, my father in law, and there are trees that are like 20ft tall.

And they were just planted January of 25, I want to say.

So.

I mean, it's just you get goosebumps because it's like, oh my gosh, it's it's theory and action.

Like look at it's working.

And directly adjacent to that forest is a forest that we planted with some dear friends, friends of ours, basically family.

And they're an older couple.

And seeing the plants that were little twigs now have these like robust like the trunks are now like there's some chunky trunks.

And then knowing that that's where they will be buried and that one day, you know, I will hopefully be there to, to to hang out and remember them.

It's a beautiful thing that we have created together.

Like they created that with us.

And it would not have existed if they had not said this.

This makes sense to me.

Did the tree what's it called?

Tree museum?

Yes.

Museum of Trees.

Was was creating the tree museum part of becoming accredited or that.

You know what I mean?

Like, it seems like that might fit into sort of the checklist of how you become accredited.

Is something formalized like that?

Because it seems like a lot of it comes down to labeling.

Is that true?

Yes.

So, we created the Museum of Trees as.

Yes.

Basically, that's the museum element to it, because that way, That way, you could physically click on a little dot and have Google Maps or whatever your map of choice take you to that GPS location.

So like if you're on the ground with your phone.

If you're on the ground with your phone, you can go up to a tree and you can see, yes, it's identification.

You know, the common name, botanical name, but you can also see when it was planted, you can see who planted it.

And if there is, like a dedication or something, you can find out a little bit more about why that tree is there.

So if the loved ones wanted to leave some sort of, you know, description even of who their loved one was or is, then somebody with that whole process might be able to stand there and know that, yes, in a way that's not possible in a normal cemetery.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

It's again, it's this way of like, illuminating.

I keep coming back to that word illuminating, because it's shining a light on the all these individuals who have come together and, the Museum of Trees, that idea also, I think what's unique is.

Well, so first of all, we're specializing in the Miyawaki forest planting.

So a lot of arboretum.

They have like established collections like mature 50 year old trees.

Ours are baby trees.

And we're documenting how they're growing in different site conditions.

But also how often can people say that they've contributed to an arboretum collection and that, they get to actually they don't have to physically come to the site.

They can they can be in Norway or Germany or something, and they can tune in and see.

Oh, look like the field report was just updated.

It's like when you sort of like get to name a star in a weird way.

Yeah.

So it's like it's like that.

But I think what really, inspires or excites me personally is the level of accountability.

Because again, we live on site so I can send, you know, I take field report photos at all different times of the day.

So you'll see the morning fog.

It looks like that seen in Pride and Prejudice or Mr.

Darcy's like coming out of the fog.

Wow.

You can experience that with your tree.

Wow.

But this idea of, like, you know, getting to, to see in real time that things are happening and you can see, like, the butterflies.

We had one family, we did a burial for them this year, but we planted a milkweed plant and I saw the first caterpillars.

I thought they were monarch butterflies because milkweed.

That turns out I'm learning.

There is not always that.

It's not always that.

The other one is the the queen.

I think it's the queen butterfly.

I'm sorry.

I'm sure Jerry Jackson told us about it.

Everybody, please correct me in the comments.

But, but basically it's the the first, like the first new life happening as a result of this planting.

And it's such a joy to be able to share that with the families especially, you know, when they're, you know, they are grieving the loss of someone that they loved.

And they get to see that that person is, responsible for for helping to create this, this new, this new life or this new habitat.

You mentioned is sort of in passing early.

The sergeant.

How do you say his name?

Oh, Sergeant Elio Diaz Diaz.

Yes.

Can you just explain what that is?

Yeah.

So, Sergeant Diaz, he was with the Charlotte County Sheriff's Department, and from what we heard, he's just was just a stand up officer.

The type of officer that many of them would aspire to be like, you know, he took time to talk to people on the street.

He really, he brought a lot of joy to the to the department.

So he was tragically shot and killed, and right before Christmas.

And he spent 74 minutes on that final call.

And the person who was helping was the one who ended up, taking his life.

So I reached out to the, reached out to the department, just said, look, at that point we had just opened.

We had no business reaching out and being like, let's plant this.

So that was the the Christmas right after Christmas of 2024.

Yes.

So we basically it just was on my heart and I was like, this just I know for a fact that planting can can lift the burden even just for a little bit.

And so I reached out and the family said, yes.

I said, you know.

And so we got to work.

We contacted, I think, over five local native nurseries that donated plant material.

We donated plant material from our stock.

We had a local Cuban food truck.

They donated.

So, like Sergeant Diaz, he would bring a thermos full of Cuban coffee to work every day, and he would share it with people, and it's strong stuff.

So we all took, like, a shot of espresso or a Cuban coffee at the beginning, like before the planting began.

And it was just this way of, like, really getting in touch with, like, who?

This person that the values that this person had and we had, I believe like four generations of his family show up and we had volunteers, we had fellow officers show up and, you know, it, it was a day.

It was it was a brutal, brutally cold day, rare cold day in southwest Florida.

It was in January.

But, we we did it.

And I seeing the plants there now, like 15ft tall and it's dense.

It looks like a forest now is incredible.

Oh, the 74ft is because, we honored the 74 minutes of service that he did by creating a pathway through the forest 74ft long.

And the reason for that is we want you to physically feel the time passing and to feel what 74 minutes felt like.

So we are currently working on, you know, getting a memorial pathway put in and that sort of thing with like a countdown.

So 74, 73, 72 every foot and then ending in like a memorial, a like either a fountain or something.

But this idea that we can honor this person's final act and then have that final call to action be be of service, because that's what he was about.

It's not a memorial where like you're supposed to go and stand and be sad.

It's a memorial where you can remember honor, but then you can also go out and go do like one good deed in the community.

And if that's his legacy, how beautiful would that be?

You.

You mentioned you self-identified as an artist when you were a six year old, and you lived there now, and it is artistic.

Does it feel like living in a giant outdoor art palette?

Actually, yes it does.

So I became very interested in, my gosh, it's called relational esthetics.

So basically it's this idea of like the, the participant or the viewer coming in and completing the piece.

So for example, there is an artist who his name is Rick, and he introduced this idea of like, what if we had tie food, a tie meal in a gallery space?

And that is the art piece, right?

And to me that was always very interesting.

I was like, okay, how, how, how can art expand beyond the gallery walls?

That was part of my senior thesis when I was at the University of Pennsylvania, was studying, how can art go out and impact people who might not have an art history background, who have maybe never stepped in a museum or gallery, but how can art still impact them?

So the relational esthetic part, the participatory part has carried into these plantings because to me it's it is quote unquote relational esthetics.

And people don't need to know that.

They can just know that I've created, like, we've put the framework of this experience together so that they can feel something, whatever it is that they need to feel or meet them wherever they are.

And it is art to me, but it doesn't need to be art to them.

And maybe someday, a level two arboretum.

Oh yeah, or beyond.

Or beyond?

We are unfortunately out of time.

I want to thank my guest.

Lauren Robie is co-founder of Hope Gardens and Arboretum in Punta Gorda.

Thank you so much for coming down to talk with me.

Thank you Mike.

I appreciate it.

If you missed any of the show, you can always hear all of our episodes on our website.

You we'll have the link to her three song stories episode there as well.

Our show today was produced by yours truly with audio production and video production by Matt Krause For now, thanks for listening I might.

This is WGCU FM Fort Myers 90.1 WMKO Marco Island 91.7 FM We are NPR.

For Southwest Florida.