How to Choose a Headstone Vase: Built-In, Turning, Staked and What Cemeteries Allow

The vase is the least noticed part of a grave and the one that decides the most. It determines what size arrangement fits, whether flowers survive wind and mowers, and whether the cemetery leaves them alone. If a grave has no vase, or a broken one, fixing that does more for it than any single arrangement.

Types of grave vase

Built-in turning vase

The standard at memorial parks with flat bronze or granite markers. A metal vase sits in a sleeve cast into the marker's base, and turns upside down into the sleeve when not in use, so mowers pass over it. To use it, lift and turn it upright. Sizes are standard, usually 3 to 4 inches across the opening, and arrangements for them are built on a foam base that fits the vase. This is the safest place in any cemetery for flowers.

Granite or bronze vase on an upright monument

Older and larger monuments often have a matching vase, or two, set on the base beside the stone. They are heavy, permanent and roomy; they take a full-size arrangement. They also hold water and freeze, so many have a drain hole or a removable liner.

Staked ground vase

A plastic or metal vase on a spike, pushed into the ground beside the marker. Inexpensive, easy to place, and the answer for a grave with no built-in vase, a new grave with only a temporary marker, or a headstone with no room for a saddle. Most cemeteries allow them; some memorial parks with strict flat-marker rules do not, since anything beside the marker is in the mower's path.

Cone or clip vase

A narrow cone that clips to or hangs from an upright stone, for a small bouquet. Common at national cemeteries, which provide temporary cones for fresh flowers.

Choosing for the grave you have

• Flat marker in a memorial park: the built-in vase, if there is one. If not, ask the cemetery whether one can be added; many can retrofit a sleeve, for a fee.
• Flat marker in a traditional cemetery: a staked ground vase beside the marker, or a saddle if there is a raised edge to hold one.
• Upright headstone with a base: a granite or bronze vase on the base, or a saddle on top of the stone. Our guide to saddles and vases compares them.
• New grave, temporary marker: a staked vase, until the headstone is set.

When the vase is missing or broken

Built-in vases go missing constantly: lifted for cleaning and not replaced, taken, or corroded in the sleeve. Replacements are standard parts. The cemetery office can tell you the sleeve size and usually sells or installs the vase, or a monument company can. Until it is replaced, a staked vase or a saddle keeps flowers at the grave. When BloomBridge delivers to a grave with a missing vase, the Runner uses a stake or saddle where the cemetery allows it, and the delivery photo shows you the problem so you can decide whether to replace the vase.

Materials and winter

Bronze lasts longest and matches bronze markers; aluminum and plastic are lighter and cheaper and the usual choice for replacements. Any vase that holds water will freeze and can crack in winter; turning vases are stored upside down for this reason, and granite vases often have liners. Silk arrangements need no water, which sidesteps the problem entirely.