On a recent trip to a cemetery at home I started noticing the variance between artificial and real flowers at gravesites. As it turns out, there's been some controversy regarding the makeup of flower arrangements in cemeteries. Some cemeteries ban artificial flowers altogether while others ban them between May and October because it's easy for the plastic pieces to get stuck in the mowers. Randy Zehms, cemetery sexton at Floral Hill Cemetery in New London, Wisconsin, gave us the scoop on his cemetery's flower regulations:

Chew the Fat: How popular are artificial flowers in Floral Hills Cemetery?
Randy Zehms: I would estimate we have about 75% artificial and 25% real flowers.

CtF: At what point will cemetery groundkeepers remove artificial flowers from gravesites?
RZ: We usually remove the artificial flowers when they become faded from the sun, or when we get a lot of wind and they blow all over the place. In most cases the people are pretty good at removing there flowers but we do have a fall cleanup from October 15 through November 1 when we remove all flowers and then people can put out there fall and christmas decorations.

CtF: How do you feel about artificial flowers in your cemetery?

RZ: I really do not have a problem with artificial flowers at gravesites, as long as they are kept up. Once in a while we do end up hitting them with the mower causing a real messy problem. The problem with real flowers is that people bring them out and water them just once or twice and then they die and look awful.

CtF: What flowers are popular on gravesites right now?
RZ: For real flowers, the most popular types are begonias, petunias and pansies, these 3 are the most heat tolerant types of flowers. We have a nursery here in New London that people can pay a certain price and the nursery plants real flowers in pots and brings them out here. As far as the most popular types of artificial flowers, we really do not have any. There are all kinds of flowers out here, fake roses, fake tulips, fake geraniums, just to name a few.

- Kait