We don’t think Street Orchards exist yet, so this is a chance to get involved in a real experiment in urban tree growing.
The idea is to recruit clusters of homes, where each neighbour is willing to plant and look after a (free!) fruit tree. These trees would be non-self-fertile, meaning each tree would rely on the others in the cluster to be fertilised so that fruit can grow. We hope to run training sessions in tree care for clusters, and perhaps help build insect hotels to encourage pollinators to take up residence nearby. It could be a great way to get to know your neighbours, and the possibilities of harvest street festivals or Montpelier Cider have been bandied about. It is also a key way to increase the number of trees in cities, especially very built up areas like Montpelier where the possible sites for pavement trees are few and far between.
At the moment, we don’t know how many neighbours we would need to recruit, or whether every garden in a row would need to be involved, or what fruit might work best. We’re getting specialist advice on this and hope to be in a position to lay everything out in early January.
If you’re interested in being part of a cluster, or better yet, would be willing to recruit a few of your neighbours, please let us know in a comment below or by emailing urbangreening@transitionmontpelier.org.uk. This project is open to all: we are particularly keen to hear from people in housing association or other rented properties, and can help with landlord discussions if that would be useful.
You can also come and chat to us about this at the Picton Street Christmas Fair, December 17.
yes please
Hi there. Hey, this is great! I’ve been thinking about starting to campaign for Street Orchards in my town (Worthing, West Sussex), did a bit of googling and stumbled over this post – delighted to hear someone else working on this too.
Are you planning on having the trees in gardens, or in the pavements (I started thinking about this because there’s a random plum tree in my street and I picked some plums this year, and no one else seemed to be doing the same)? Having pavement trees would mean that ownership problems could be avoided as and when residents move on – each tree could be ‘looked after’ by a nearby resident, bbut ownership would reside with the council. Have you got the council on board? I’m on the county council here, so I’ve a bit of an inside track on that.
Also, what trees? I’ve been thinking of obviously native fruit – apples, pears, cherries, plums, etc.. A variety means that people could sample several different fruits, but of course having several apple or pear trees gives you more opportunity for juice and cider/perry.
The pointer about insects and pollination isn’t one I’d thought of, thanks for that.
I know I’m not local, but if you have a mailing list for more info, could you include me, so I can use your expertise and resources to push this down here?
Cheers
Hi James, nice to hear from you.
Montpelier has very narrow streets, with narrow pavements that are often parked on by cars, so there are very few spots where pavement trees are an option. We’re working with the council to plant those spots up, but they average £1500 each, as they need to be properly excavated and lined to prevent the tree roots disrupting underground pipes etc. We planted nearly 500 whips in what public space we could last winter, so the last viable planting space at the moment is gardens.
The advice we’ve had is to plant trees a maximum of 50m apart (they will be non-self fertile) and preferrably 30m, to assist pollination. We’ll give out a sheet on how to garden with pollinators in mind (90% of apple pollination is by bees), and may also give away something like lavender to help this (money dependent!). We’re aiming for apple, and the same species in each cluster, as a big part of the project is also about strengthening community links, so street juicing and cider festivals are a possibility.
I’ve put you on our mailing list, so keep us in touch with how you get on too!
Cheers,
Shiona