UPPER TOWNSHIP — One of the area’s landmarks is looking fresher and greener these days.

Workers at Woodland Cemetery have spent the last couple of months planting more than 100 red, white and pink flowering dogwoods, Kwanzan cherries, double weeping cherries, snowfountains and crabapples.

The new landscaping was both necessity and a desire to improve on one of the area’s most loved expanses of property. Cemetery board member Bob Ackerman said last year a windstorm knocked down seven trees at the cemetery. This winter’s ice storm damaged some older shrubbery and it could not be saved. The damaged landscaping has been replaced with the new trees as well as flower beds. While the new additions are perhaps most noticeable at the entrance and the abbey, the trees have been planted throughout the graveyard.

“We tried to go into some of the older sections and add color and make it look decent,” Ackerman said.

Cemetery manager Lee Morgan said new flowers will also be planted within the next month or so. Workers planted winter pansies in the fall; those plants are now adding color to the entrance gates and the area around the office.

“This is the introduction to the cemetery,” cemetery board member Arno Keyes explained. “It tells you how everything is going. What other cemetery can you go into that looks like Woodland?”

Morgan pointed out Woodland is very much on display, particularly around Memorial Day when not only area families come to pay their respects, but those who have moved away and come home to visit. This year when visitors roll through those familiar gates, he wants them to see the improvements.

“I hope when people come every year, they will see something different,” Lee Morgan said. “That’s our plan.”