Texas
In Texas, the land has always meant something sacred, vast skies stretching over prairies and mesquite, quiet hills that hold memory like heat. It’s a state defined by independence and by its deep relationship with the natural world. So it’s fitting that Texas was among the first to embrace natural and green burial, returning to the earth in a way that’s simple, sustainable, and true to the land itself.
🌿Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park - Cedar Creek, TX
In the heart of Central Texas, tucked among the trees of Cedar Creek near Austin, lies Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park, a peaceful woodland sanctuary where life and death are in harmony with nature. As one of the state’s earliest dedicated natural burial grounds, Eloise Woods has become a cherished place of simplicity, beauty, and renewal.
Founded on the belief that death can be a continuation of care for the planet by my mentor., Ellen Macdonald, Eloise Woods provides natural burials in harmony with the land, following the high standards of the Green Burial Council. Every burial is done without embalming, concrete vaults, or toxic materials. Bodies are laid to rest in biodegradable shrouds or simple wooden caskets at a depth that allows nature’s own microbes and oxygen to complete the cycle of return.
The park serves as both a burial ground and a wildlife preserve. With walking trails winding through wildflower meadows, oak groves, and native habitat, it offers a place for families to visit, reflect, and connect. No artificial flowers or decorations are permitted, only Texas native plants, natural stones, and wildflower seeds, so the land remains vibrant and ecologically sound.
At Eloise Woods, nature is the monument. Flat native stones, no taller than three inches, mark each resting place, blending into the woodland floor. The goal isn’t to impose permanence on the landscape but to let it thrive, to create a legacy of clean air, pure water, and living habitat for generations to come.
Natural burial here is more than an ecological act, it’s emotional and deeply human. As seasons shift, so do the colors, textures, and sounds of the forest, creating what scholars call a “therapeutic landscape”, a place where grief and nature coexist, and where each visit reflects the changing rhythm of life itself.
🌿Countryside Memorial Park - La Vernia, TX
Just outside San Antonio, Countryside Memorial Park offers a place of serenity and simplicity, a natural burial ground where families can return their loved ones to the earth in the purest, most natural way possible. Founded by Dr. A.D. Zucht III, a visionary dentist, balloonist, and entrepreneur, Countryside reflects his belief that death, like life, should be rooted in authenticity and respect for nature.
When Dr. Zucht passed away, his daughter Chrysta Bell Zucht and her mother Sunny Markham carried his dream forward. Together, they transformed Countryside Memorial Park into a thriving sanctuary for green burial. Chrysta Bell, a world-touring artist and actress known for Twin Peaks: The Return, uses her platform to educate others about sustainable deathcare, while Sunny leads families through the burial process with compassion and care.
At Countryside, burial is performed at a shallow, natural depth of about three feet, where microbes and oxygen work together to return the body to the soil swiftly and safely. There are no vaults, toxic chemicals, or metal caskets, only biodegradable materials like shrouds, reeds, bamboo, or wooden caskets. Families are welcome to help close the grave themselves, a final, loving gesture that reconnects them to the earth and the person they’ve lost.
The cemetery’s natural landscape, a mix of open Texas sky, wildflowers, and historic grounds, invites reflection and participation. Families can plant native trees or shrubs, place flat engraved stone markers, and decorate graves with biodegradable flowers or simple tokens of love. Everything here is designed to protect the integrity and wild beauty of the land.
🌿Blazing Star Sanctuary in Coastal Prarie Conservancy - Katy, TX
On the open grasslands west of Houston, Blazing Star Sanctuary is transforming the way Texans think about burial, land, and legacy. This new conservation cemetery, part of the Coastal Prairie Conservancy, is restoring one of the most endangered ecosystems on earth, the tallgrass prairie, while creating a place of remembrance that will last forever.
Unlike traditional cemeteries, Blazing Star is designed as a nature sanctuary first. Each burial contributes directly to prairie restoration and conservation, no vaults, no embalming, no concrete, only biodegradable materials that allow the body to return fully to the soil. Burial sites are chosen with deep respect for the land’s natural contours, and small, flat markers ensure that the landscape remains open and wild.
Less than 1% of Texas’s original tallgrass prairie still exists, but the work at Blazing Star is helping to change that. The preserve’s caretakers are reintroducing native wildflowers, grasses, and pollinators, building healthy soil, and restoring wetland habitats that once defined the Gulf Coast region. By 2025, thousands of native plants will once again cover the memorial grasslands, providing vital refuge for migratory birds and wildlife.
Every burial and every scattering here provides tangible environmental benefits, sequestering carbon, filtering water, improving air quality, and reducing flooding. The sanctuary’s partnership with the Coastal Prairie Conservancy ensures the land will be protected in perpetuity, never to be developed or lost to urban sprawl.
🌿Campo De Estrellas - Smithville, TX
In the quiet countryside of Bastrop County, near Smithville, Texas, a new kind of burial ground is taking shape, one that gives back to the land rather than taking from it. Campo de Estrellas Conservation Cemetery is rewilding nine acres of former cattle pasture, transforming it into a thriving ecosystem where people, pets, and the planet coexist in balance.
Set within the 30-acre property of Abbey Grange Farm, Campo de Estrellas is part of a larger vision: to restore biodiversity and let the land heal itself. The cemetery follows strict green burial practices, no embalming, no concrete vaults, and no non-biodegradable materials. Every casket, shroud, and flower placed here must return naturally to the earth. Only native Texas plants are used to mark graves, ensuring that each resting place blends seamlessly into the ecosystem.
Campo de Estrellas goes beyond green burial because it’s part of a rewilding project, reviving the natural rhythms of East Texas. By restoring native vegetation, supporting wildlife habitats, and encouraging the presence of species like deer, wild turkeys, predatory birds, coyotes, and even wild hogs, the preserve is rebuilding a self-sustaining, balanced ecosystem. Every interment directly supports this ecological renewal.
🌿Unbroken Circle Cemetery - Atascosa, TX
Sacred burial provides a deep connection to the land for family and friends whose loved ones are here on this conserved land, the home of San Antonio’s green cemetery. Specifically designed to save and restore significant wildlands and habitats, Unbroken Circle Green Cemetery has fewer interments than usual cemeteries. To that end, family and friends will experience a closer emotional connection with a natural burial experience. Most importantly, you protect the environment, take care of our planet, preserve the natural habitat, reduce your carbon footprint, and remain financially responsible.
🌿Mountain Creek Cemetery (hybrid) - Grand Prarie, TX
At Mountain Creek Cemetery, we provide a peaceful resting place where families can honor their loved ones with dignity, compassion, and care. Located in Grand Prairie, Texas, we offer traditional burials, green options, and urn interments—all in a serene setting designed to bring comfort and connection. Here, every memory is cherished, and every legacy continues to bloom,
🌿Our Lady of the Rosary Cemetery (hybrid) - Georgetown, TX
There is nothing traditional about conventional burial. Over the last decade, traditional (green) burial has been overran by new products and a one size fits all mind-set. The current trend of conventional burial says we should be handled by strangers, filled with poisonous chemicals, sealed away in a mass produced casket and be placed in yet another container to seal us away from nature.
From the peaceful meadows of Countryside Memorial Park near San Antonio to the wooded trails of Our Lady of the Rosary Cemetery and Prayer Gardens, Texans are rediscovering that caring for the dead can also mean caring for the soil. These sanctuaries prove that dignity doesn’t require concrete or chemicals, only intention, community, and love of place.
If you want information on how to start your own natural burial cemetery, or you want to make me aware of another green, natural, or hybrid cemetery in this state, please
reach out!
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