Grave Cleaning & Headstone Restoration in Gaithersburg

Cleaning Tree Sap and Mulch Stains in Gaithersburg

Gaithersburg has a mix of everything. You have the historic stones in Forest Oak and the modern, manicured plots in places like Garden of Remembrance. The problems here are specific to the environment. We see a lot of damage from aggressive landscaping—specifically dyed mulch—and the massive oak trees that shade the older graves.

Construction is the other factor. With all the work on Route 355 and new housing, the air is full of red dust. It settles on the monuments and turns into a hard, muddy haze when it rains. Families searching for headstone cleaning services near me call us to remove these stubborn organic stains and to polish away the construction grime.

Stains from Dyed Mulch

Landscapers love using red or black mulch around headstones. It looks neat, but the dye runs. After a heavy rain, that color washes out of the wood chips and soaks into the granite base. We see gray stones with a bright pink or dark purple ring around the bottom.

Bleach won't touch these stains. We have to use a poultice. We mix a chemical paste and pack it onto the stone. We leave it covered for a full day. The paste absorbs the dye as it dries, pulling the color right out of the rock.

Tree Sap and "Sooty Mold"

Forest Oak Cemetery is famous for its old trees. They look great, but they drop a lot of sap. The sap lands on the headstones and hardens like glue. Then, a black fungus called "sooty mold" grows on the sugar in the sap. It looks like someone splattered tar on the marker.

You can't scrape this off without scratching the stone. We use hot water and a solvent to melt the sap. Once the sugar is gone, the black fungus washes right off.

Construction Dust Haze

Gaithersburg is always under construction. The dust from the digging is full of silica and red clay. This dust is gritty. Wiping it dry destroys the polish. You are essentially rubbing sand into the mirror finish.

We soak the stone completely to flush the grit away before we touch it. Then we use a non-ionic soap to lift the remaining film. This restores the mirror finish without scratching it.

Lichen on Sandstone

In the older sections, we find soft sandstone markers covered in crusty lichen. These organisms eat into the stone. If you pull them off, the face of the stone comes with them.

We spray a biological cleaner that soaks into the growth. It kills the lichen at the root. We don't scrub it. We let nature do the rest. The dead lichen eventually loses its grip and washes away in the rain.

Service Costs in Gaithersburg

Removing mulch dye is a multi-day process because the poultice needs time to work. Cleaning sap is faster but requires detail work. We don't give blind quotes. We have to walk up to the stone and check the condition before we give you a price.