Cremated remains offer ‘immortality’ as food for memorial trees

Dr Mary Cole

Australians wanting to live on as trees after they die now have a new burial option, with a Melbourne research team discovering how to turn human ashes into plant food. Lead scientist Dr Mary Cole said she believed they had created a world-first process to reduce the high salt and alkalinity levels of cremated remains […]

Living Legacy: From Grief to Growth

Living legacy Memorial Tree Forest

Warren Roberts’s best friend passed away 10 years ago. He didn’t cry at the funeral, and if you’d asked him how he was in the following years he would’ve told you he was fine. He wasn’t. Around three years ago Warren began spending more and more time in nature. “You know, the more time I […]

Frangipani, Flame Tree, or Lemon Myrtle; What Tree Would You Like to Become?

Living-Legacy-main-pic-resized-for-PM-955x537

The concept of burying a loved-one’s ashes under a tree or flowering shrub isn’t as straightforward as you may think. Warren Roberts, founder and CEO of Living Legacy Forest, likens the alkalinity of ashes to caustic soda, saying the pH is so high that it either kills plants or hampers root growth. “At the moment, most […]

Marian’s tree of life

MARIAN’S LIVING LEGACY TREE 2

For Marian Osborn’s loved ones, it was a poetic way to honour the lifeblood of the family. For the first time in Melbourne’s west, a person’s scientifically transformed cremated remains have been infused into the root ball of a tree for planting at a cemetery. Marian’s “Living Legacy” memorial tree at Altona Memorial Park is […]