Nursery Row Park’s Community Orchard was established by local resident and activist Ro Shannon in 1995. Since then local people have been involved in the planting of a wide variety of edible and inedible fruiting trees.
At a time of concern over lack of knowledge about where our food comes from, the Community Orchard aims to provide a place to enjoy and show how well we can live with nature as a friend and collaborator. We hope it also provides a place to share knowledge and horticultural skills, and to stimulate us into growing our food again.
Currently the orchard is made up of many different species of trees, including:
· Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
· Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
· Hazel (Corylus avellana)
· Crab apple (Malus)
· Field maple (Acer campestre)
· Damson (Prunus insititia)
· Plum (Prunus domestica)
· Greengage (Prunus domestica subsp. italica var. claudiana)
· Domestic apple (Malus domestica)
· Peach (Prunus persica)
· Apricot (Prunus armeniaca)
· Wild rose (Rosa acicularis)
· Wild pear (Pyrus communis)
· Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera)
· Rowan (Sorbus)
We have also started planting fruit trees from around the world to celebrate the different communities around our park. These include:
Friends of Nursery Row Park like to celebrate Apple Day, which is intended to be both a celebration and a demonstration of the variety we are in danger of losing – not simply in apples, but richness and diversity of landscape, place, ecology and culture too.
We were proud to host the London Orchard Project’s fruit tree pruning workshop in February 2011, see here.