Types of Burial Options
Choosing the type of burial to memorialize your loved ones or yourself is a profoundly personal decision. Burial options offer a valuable outlet to maintain the memories of your loved ones forever. At The Gardens, we offer several types of burial options to help you and your loved ones find the ideal resting place.
Above Ground Burial
Even though in-ground burials are more traditional, understanding how above-ground burials work can change the way we look at them.
Above-ground burials are sometimes referred to as tombs. Once a coffin is placed in the tomb, is covered in soil, and finally sealed. Due to the high-water tables, above-ground burials offer water damage prevention. As a result, above-ground burial options are relatively common in areas close to the water, like South Florida.
In Community Mausoleums
Within above-ground burials, there are public mausoleums, referred to as community mausoleums. These are above-ground buildings memorializing multiple individuals. Community mausoleums provide a secure enclose that remains clean and dry, without ever letting the casket come in contact with the earth.
The Gardens offers indoor and outdoor mausoleums, which means you can visit your loved ones regardless of the weather.
Jewish Mausoleums
Community mausoleum options do not stop there. We understand all the religious traditions of the Jewish faith, which is why we offer Jewish mausoleums in our north gardens.
Non-Denominational Mausoleums
Those of non-Jewish faith can rest in our south garden mausoleum. Open to all religions, to allow families to stay close to their loved ones after death.
In Private Mausoleum
Above ground burial options also include private or family mausoleums. These are separate, independent buildings, with custom-built details, and design. Private mausoleums can accommodate up to 24 people in your family.
In Crypts
Crypts are traditionally placed beneath the floor of churches and chapels, but they can also be placed in above ground mausoleums. A crypt is built to hold a casket or an urn in a concrete chamber. Crypt options include side by side arrangements, faithful companion, and couch crypts, which are crypts that enable the casket to be entombed horizontally.
Cremation
Cremation continues to rise in popularity, as cremation offers more personalized burial options. Often those who choose cremation opt to keep the cremains in an urn, and the urn is usually stored in a cemetery or scattering garden. Families store urns virtually anywhere, including a mausoleum niche, an urn mausoleum, or other places.
Cremation offers lower-cost options, a safe above-ground resting place, and the opportunity to customize your loved ones resting place as you please.
Niches
At The Gardens we offer marble and granite cremation niches. These resemble a community mausoleum building with plaques in front. Marble and granite niches are sealed and cannot be opened after closing.
Cremation niches are evolving to allow families to have a more personalized resting place for their loved ones. Crystal glass cremation niches offer the opportunity of leaving memorabilia next to the urn, and the chance to open the niche after placement of the urn.
Family Estate Benches
A highly unique way to memorialize your loved ones. Family benches are often granite benches near lakes and gardens that allow the placement of a cremation urn inside the foundation of the bench. In most cases, inscribed on a plaque on the bench are the name of the family, the name of the deceased, and date of death.
The Gardens of Boca Raton Cemetery & Funeral Services is ready to help you with your family’s burial arrangements. We facilitate above-ground burial options in the South Florida area, and our counselors are ready to discuss all of your options. Call us at 561-989-9190 anytime.
What Is a Green Burial?
While most people understand that natural burial is the internment of a dead body back into the soil in a manner that doesn’t slow down or prevent decomposition, many still wonder about green burials. The short answer is that a natural burial and a green burial are essentially the same things: burying the deceased in the ground in a way that helps the body return to the ground and soil naturally.
While a green burial and a natural burial are very similar, in specific a green burial is a way of caring for the deceased’s remain with minimal environmental impact. The idea behind green burials is to allow decomposition to recycle the body naturally while reducing carbon emissions, and preserving the habitat.
Why Would Someone Want a Green Burial?
People are choosing a green burial more than in recent decades, mostly because they are choosing to impact the earth in a better way by reducing their “footprint.” By being buried using green products, in a green cemetery, less space is taken up, and the soil remains natural.
By thinking about how people were buried for thousands of years, natural burial is also an effort to return to the way before the world became industrialized, which in many ways, hurt the environment.
There are several reasons people choose a green burial:
- Green caskets are biodegradable and produced with carbon-neutral methods, meaning they won’t add toxins into the earth.
- They maintain the natural habitats of wherever they are buried, which includes clean groundwater and native plants and animals.
- Formaldehyde that was previously in the body would normally be absorbed back into the earth, but a green burial doesn’t allow for embalming fluids, keeping the return to the earth much more natural.
Types of Green Burials
As with many other forms of burials, there are different types of green burials that go from natural burial grounds to water burials, and beyond. Let’s take a look at some of the common types of green burials in Florida.
Natural Green Burial
In this case, a burial container, such as grave liners and vaults are not used. Bodies cannot be embalmed, and the containers used to hold the remains must be made of natural or plant-based materials. Usually their burials are done in natural environments, and the use of pesticides are not allowed to maintain the grounds.
Conservational Burial
A conservation burial takes places in a cemetery that has a conservation easement registered. It gives the land perpetual conservation of the ecological environment. This is basically a natural green burial, but with stricter standards. The burial grounds are protected from the use of toxic chemicals or metals.
Hybrid Cemetery
A hybrid cemetery blends a traditional cemetery with a green burial space. Hybrid cemeteries have a designated parcel of land for green burials, which means burial vaults are not used here. They may also have green urns or scattering gardens options as well.
How to Have a Green Burial?
Talk with your local funeral home, like Boca Raton Funeral Home, and ask them what green burial options they have available. A natural burial should include the person being buried in a shroud, or a “green casket,” made from sustainable products from renewable sources. Wooden or steel caskets do not fall into these categories.
They should also be buried in a natural burial ground or green cemetery, without a grave liner, or outer burial container.
The grave should also be marked with a “green headstone,” which could be a natural marker, like a stone, or something planted on the grave, like a tree or flowers.
Things to Consider About Green Burials
It could be said that a fully green burial is impossible as everything we do has some sort of carbon impact. However, using recyclable materials and proper practices, one can have a greener burial that doesn’t have a big impact on the environment long-term.
If you are considering a green burial in South Florida and you have more questions about them, call The Gardens of Boca Raton Cemetery & Funeral Services at (561)-693-0399, and let them help. They have performed hundreds of funerals in the South Florida area and will be happy to answer your questions.
About Embalming
While embalming isn’t required in every country, it happens to be something done as a benefit to loved ones, hoping to leave a good, final memory of their lost loved one. Many might be wondering, “What is embalming?” In short, the embalming process is a treatment that helps delay decomposition of the body of a dead loved one.
The practice of embalming dates back to the late 1800s, and embalming has become commonplace in the United States and Canada over the past century, to allow friends and family to view the body of their lost loved one.
What is Embalming?
Embalming treats the body of a deceased person with chemicals, like formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde and ethanol, to preserve the body and delay decomposition.
For over 100 years, the embalming process has become the standard method for morticians and funeral homes to prepare bodies for their final viewing.
A German chemist named August Wilhelm von Hofmann discovered formaldehyde in 1867, and it was originally used to help preserve bodies for scientific study. This eventually birthed the process of embalming as we know it today.
It became more common as populations spread out across North America, especially during the Civil War, when deceased servicemen were embalmed and transported for burials near their home.
Embalming for a funeral can last for a day or a week, depending on the methods and the strength of the chemicals used. Bodies used for scientific research are embalmed with much stronger chemicals than the ones used in a mortuary.
Embalming involves an injection of chemicals into the arteries, tissues and organs of a deceased body, while also draining the body’s fluids.
What Will Embalming Cost?
The embalming process takes less than an hour, although, some cosmetology and dressing of the body might take a few hours.
Depending on the charges for dressing, cosmetology and casketing (which is the term for placing the body inside the casket), the embalming process cost can vary greatly. Most funeral homes will include this price in their funeral services, which could also include burial, funeral planning and funeral announcements.
Some alternatives to embalming include keeping the body in a cool, dry place to preserve it and keep it from decomposing, which might mean using dry ice, refrigeration or freezer packs. Immediate burial (within 48 hours of death) or immediate cremation can also be an alternative to the embalming process.
In South Florida, The Gardens of Boca Raton Cemetery & Funeral Services takes care of all funeral services, including embalming, cremation and entombment. They’d be happy to help you with any questions you might have about your funeral in the Palm Beach, Broward or Dade Counties.
