AREA FOR ASHES PART OF EMERGING TREND.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

With cremation rates steadily rising, Forest Lawn has created the company's first ``cremation garden'' at its Hollywood Hills site.

The memorial park and mortuary company has landscaped about a third of an acre at its Hollywood Hills site for the cremation garden. Families can place urns under concrete shells molded to resemble rocks along a path surrounded by trees in a setting called the Woodlands.

The goal is to give families an alternative to scattering the remains of their loved ones in a forest or the ocean.

``If we had done this 10 years ago, it might have been really odd or out of place,'' said John Warren, senior vice president of marketing at Forest Lawn. ``But now it fits well with how people are memorializing.''

California's cremation rate is expected to increase to 58 percent by 2010, up from 48 percent in 2002, according to the Cremation Association of North America. More than 35 percent of Los Angeles County families chose cremation.

Cremation has become appealing to baby boomers, Warren said.

``It's just a mind-set of, let's not do what our parents or grandparents did,'' he said.

Ronald Barrett, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University, said that society has become more tolerant of cremation over the years.

``People should be able to construct meaningful rituals for themselves and not be constrained by tradition,'' Barrett said.

Forest Lawn created 526 memorial rocks at its Hollywood Hills location, and each rock has a vault underneath with a capacity of four urns. The company is considering building similar sites elsewhere.

Each vault and marker sells for $4,500 with capacity for four internments. That compares to $2,000 for a typical grave.

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com