Southern plots

I've been to a number of cemeteries in Georgia - Bear's relations - and have noticed a pattern that I don't see elsewhere. The family burial plots are treated like little pieces of personal property.

The plots are mostly blocked off, edged mainly in brick, to separate themselves from the next plot. And it isn't just a few within the cemetery doing it - if one is, then most are done this way. Some are raised and then filled in with small stones or gravel, some are completely cemeted over. I don't know if this is encouraged so that groundskeeping is kept at a minimum, like not having to mow EVER, or if this is tradition.

But it's definitely different.

I can't speak for Northern cemeteries; the ones I usually go to are the large privately owned ones. I think I've only been to one actual church cemetery. Monuments tend to be a bit larger and bit more elaborate in Northern cemeteries. The one I tend to frequent the most, for instance, has a pyramid. Some guy who had an interest in Egyptology decided that instead of a regular mausoleum, he'd have a pyramid. Everytime I visit, I have to go by it - it's part of the directions I give myself ("It's two streets on the right after the pyramid.") Of course, my relations didn't have that kind of money. About a quarter of them don't have any headstones on their plots, and those that do tend to have just one large slab with all the names on it.