The Public Planting Committee oversees four very important projects in downtown York.

• The Blue Star Memorial By-Way Garden is located in the plaza of the Wellspan Park – the home of York’s Revolutions’ minor league baseball team. In 1945 the National Garden Club Inc. started the Blue Star Memorial Program as a living memorial to honor the veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. This peaceful, serene garden honors ALL veterans of the U. S. Armed Forces, living or dead, and is welcome to all.

• The herb garden is located behind the Gates’ house and Golden Plough Tavern. It includes culinary and medicinal herbs like that which would have been expected in colonial times. It is in the middle of the Colonial Complex on Market Street and down the street from the York County History Center.

• The 15 cradle-shaped graves located in the historic Prospect Hill Cemetery are not only used for children. These graves consist of a gravestone, a footstone and two very low stone walls connecting them.  This creates a rectangular-shaped cradle to hold plantings.  These flowers are used to mimic a blanket on top of the grave.  In Victorian times, families would come to visit the graves after church on Sundays to tell stories about their ancestors.   A self-guided walking tour brochure is available.

• Click here to download a map and more information about each cradle grave.

• The Adopt-A-Block program is a city-wide project in which we are assigned to clean up a street four times a year. We have chosen to be responsible for the streets near the history center and the colonial herb garden on Pershing Avenue.