Image courtesy of Flickr user Wystan.

Over time, a grave can become discoloured and lose its original appearance through a variety of factors. When this does happen, and the discolouration has actually stained into the stone, then your best bet is to have any affected headstones attended to by a memorial care company, who can remove a tiny layer of stone from the surface, allowing clean stone underneath to be displayed instead.

However, you want to put this off for as long as possible by keeping your gravestones in good condition, and to do that, you need to take the time to ensure that the risk of discolouration of the stone is kept to a minimum.

The best way to go about this is rather simple: make sure you remove any debris that lands on the stone as soon as possible. This can be leaves, twigs, bird droppings, or anything else that could potentially fall onto the gravestone and stay there. This includes things that are leaning against the gravestone, so no piles of dead leaves or long grass should be allowed either.

You’ll also want to clean the stone of moss or other growths, as over time these can do just as good a job of staining the stone as dead leaves. This is also a fairly easy task.

What may be more time intensive is giving the stone a full wash, but this can get some of the best results out of the stone. It is a job that requires care and patience, as you may have to do multiple passes on one area, and can only use safe, weak cleaning products, and no strong brushes, as these can damage the stone.

Looking after a gravestone doesn’t have to be a difficult task. With some simple tips and advice, you can ensure that any headstones, be they marble headstones or granite headstones look great for that much longer.

With the help of this video, we hope that you can look after memorials for loved ones with a much greater degree of success, keeping them free from weathering effects, moss and mould whilst not damaging the original stonework.

Of course, you can’t fight against the weathering effects of the elements forever, and even though these tips will certainly help you maintain your gravestone far longer, they do not provide indefinite protection. Luckily, there are professional companies that can provide memorial care to a much higher standard when it becomes necessary. Not only will they clean the stone, but can also restore lettering or other details and reattach leaded pieces.

Watch the video and learn how you can care for your memorial.

It’s a sobering tale that left many with a tear in their eye. A young nine year old boy in America had been saving his pennies for an iPod or iTouch until the day his Dad tragically died and the family couldn’t afford any Headstones.

The boy’s father who was a keen outdoorsman and loved nothing better than camping and hunting with his son died of an abdominal aneurysm, leaving his young family devastated. Like many young families, making ends meet is a challenge each and every week so having the luxury of disposable income is a far cry from reality.

The young boy, Blake, used some of his favourite toys to mark where his father had been buried and whilst he was busy saving any penny he had to buy an iPod or iTouch, he decided that he would hold a garage sale comprising of his old toys and any money made would go towards paying for his dad’s Gravestones.

Touched by his enormous selflessness, his mother agreed to try and match what he made to contribute to the headstone. Blake contacted his local radio station to generate some interest in the garage sale and as you can imagine, was inundated with people touched by the story. People flocked from far and wide to attend and left donations. The response became overwhelming and the young family managed to raise far more money than was needed for his father’s gravestone.

All the money left after the gravestone had been bought has gone into an account and is to help Blake with his education in the future.