Funeral QuestionsDad's First-Choice Natural Burial Ground Has No Plots Left — What Do We Do Now?
Asked by tallowwood_6 ·
Dad died on Sunday. For at least the last ten years he'd been completely clear that he wanted a natural burial, no coffin varnish, no headstone, just a native tree planted over him, and he'd actually driven out and looked at a specific bush cemetery about two hours from the city, said it was exactly what he pictured. We always assumed that was sorted.
I rang them Monday morning and they were lovely but honest: their natural burial section is fully allocated for at least the next eight months, and they're not the only family they've had to say that to this week. I didn't even know that was a thing that happened. I assumed if you wanted it and could pay for it, there'd be a spot. We obviously can't wait eight months to bury him.
Do other natural burial grounds work the same way, or did we just pick an unusually popular one? And if everywhere within reach is the same, what do people actually do when the specific place someone wanted turns out to not be available in time?
3 Replies
I'm sorry about your dad, and no, you didn't just pick an unusually popular one. This catches families out more than people realise. A lot of natural burial grounds deliberately cap how many burials they take in a given period, because the whole model depends on the land not being developed more intensively than the conservation plan allows. Some are also genuinely small parcels of land, so once this season's or this year's allocation is gone, it's gone regardless of demand. It's a completely different capacity model to a conventional cemetery, which is built to keep selling plots. This piece on choosing a natural burial ground goes into what to ask before booking, worth reading even now, because the questions still apply to whatever you land on.
Practically, with a funeral that can't wait eight months: ring around to two or three other natural burial grounds within a couple of hours' drive rather than assuming they're all in the same position. Availability genuinely varies a lot site to site, sometimes month to month. If nothing turns up in time, look for a conventional cemetery with a dedicated natural or "conservation" section; a growing number of cemetery trusts now offer one, generally with far more availability than a standalone natural ground, and it still delivers on the things that mattered to your dad: no embalming, a biodegradable coffin or shroud, no permanent monument, even if the wider landscape around the grave isn't quite what he pictured. The overview of what actually makes a burial "natural" is a useful gauge for comparing what's on offer.
If the specific piece of land genuinely matters to your dad and to your family beyond what the burial itself can deliver in time, some grounds will let you plant a memorial tree or place a small marker there later even without a grave, worth asking, though it's very site-dependent and not something every ground offers.
From the grounds side of things: what you ran into is honestly the norm, not the exception, for the well-established sites. The ones that have been running long enough to be well known are usually the ones with the longest waits, because word travels and everyone rings the same handful of grounds first. The newer or less-publicised ones can have plenty of room. It's worth asking your funeral director specifically which natural grounds have current availability rather than only trying the one your dad had researched. Most directors who've handled a few of these know which ones are currently taking bookings without you having to call around blind.
One thing families often don't find out until it's too late: several grounds let you register interest or reserve ahead of need, sometimes years ahead, precisely to avoid this exact situation for whoever's next. If there's another parent or family member who also wants a natural burial one day, it might be worth asking about that once this is behind you.
For what it's worth, having been through the "the specific thing they wanted isn't actually possible in the time we have" scramble myself (different circumstances, same panic), what mattered to your dad was almost certainly the values behind the choice, not the exact GPS coordinates of one particular paddock. A native tree instead of a headstone, no embalming, being let back into the ground simply. If a conservation section at a conventional cemetery gives him all of that, I don't think you've failed him by not getting the precise spot he once stood in and pointed at. We put so much pressure on ourselves in the first 48 hours to get every detail exactly right, and most of that pressure is self-imposed, not actually coming from what the person would have wanted.