Down a dirt trail walled in on both sides by thick, scratchy brambles, a large, dilapidated old tree looms out of the underbrush.
“I believe that’s an Asian pear,” Kether Scharff-Gray says.
Deeper in the woods, plum, apple and even more pear trees peek out between the towering Douglas firs. Scharff-Gray had just entered the edge of a historic orchard, and the Asian pear tree she identified is likely more than a century old.
Scharff-Gray is one of a few dedicated fruit tree enthusiasts in Bellingham documenting these historic orchards: groves of fruit trees planted in the earliest days of European settlement. Some of the oldest were planted more than 150 years ago.
While most have been either bulldozed to make room for development or lost to time, a few still survive within the city limits of Bellingham — for now. Kether and those who share her passion for fruit trees say that while historic orchards are of immense cultural value, most are at serious risk of being lost forever.
Tim Wahl, a landscape historian and former committee member of Bellingham’s Greenways Program, said historic orchards not only help tell the story of Bellingham’s past but also have great potential as spaces to build community.
“[Orchards] represent a different kind of urban open space,” Wahl said. “Old orchards are a beautiful and pleasant place that contributes to air quality, sound quality and even the ability to go out of your home office and sit under a tree.”
Valuable heirloom apple varieties
Orchard spaces can support pollinators and wildlife, Wahl added, as well as local food systems. Older orchards in particular often hold a treasure sought after by crop scientists: heirloom apple varieties.
Heirloom or heritage apples are varieties produced and grown before the 20th century. They’ve seen a comeback in home gardens in recent years due to their unique flavors, shapes and colors compared to grocery store apples, but breeders have now realized these old-time apple varieties are more than a curiosity: they’re a valuable resource for breeding.
Cameron Peace, a professor of tree fruit genetics at Washington State University, said heritage apples contain a veritable gold mine of potentially useful traits in their genetics.
“When something has its kids, only half of the genetics gets passed on,” Peace said. “There are thousands of heirlooms out there that … are not directly related to modern [apple varieties], so there’s still the chance for a lot of great attributes to be in those heirlooms that have not been checked out yet.”
Those attributes can be anything from a unique flavor or color, ripening time, or even adaptability to local climates. And historic orchards are where heirloom apples frequently hide out.
Unfortunately, many historic orchards are in decline. Decades without pruning or fertilizing can leave trees weak, and encroaching forest can deprive them of precious sunlight and water. Even when they grow on public land, Wahl said orchards frequently fall through the cracks of local management, since they require special care.
“In a land trust or city government, there’s no role for protecting what I call ‘tended’ places,” Wahl said. “The parks department cannot handle anything but the basics of running a park, so the tendency is to plant resilient things so you don’t have to mess with them very much. [Orchards] are a real challenge that way.”
Others are threatened by development, as is the case with Orchard Terrace. The site, now occupied by condominiums, was planted as an apple and pear orchard in 1870. While residents have tried to keep the surviving trees alive, only a few remain today. The close quarters have resulted in most being over-pruned, which can sometimes kill older trees.
To preserve the genetics of aging trees surrounded by development, Scharff-Gray uses a technique known as grafting. She first takes a small cutting from the heirloom she wishes to preserve and matches it to a rooted seedling with the same stem diameter. Then, she fits the two together and seals the junction with wax.
If the graft is successful, the two stems will merge into one, producing a sapling that will grow up to be a clone of the heirloom. The method doesn’t save the original tree, but it does offer hope that the variety will survive, Scharff-Gray explained.
For historic orchards still on public land, the next steps are unclear. The vision of orchard spaces being maintained for public enjoyment is appealing, but both Scharff-Gray and Wahl acknowledge it comes with a hefty number of logistical hurdles. These include maintenance, security, accessibility, and perhaps most importantly, convincing more people that it’s worth the work to upkeep them.
Need more people to get involved
Wahl stressed it will take more than just a couple tree enthusiasts to turn the fading groves into vibrant public spaces.
“We need a nucleus,” Wahl said. “Governments can provide land … and they can restate to everyone the benefits of this in the public open space and food security system. But in the end, you need people who care for it.”
Wahl recommended anyone interested in getting involved first check out the Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation, which operates an orchard of grafted heirloom apple varieties at Washington State University’s Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center and holds several educational events each year. For a small membership fee, participants can attend a fall fruit harvest and a class on how to graft fruit trees at home.
Fruit trees are a part of Bellingham’s history. Even though Scharff-Gray sometimes has to crash through the woods to find them, she said historic trees can live nearly anywhere.
With a close enough look and a bit of care, these relics of the past will continue to make the city a little sweeter for years to come.
If you have what you think may be an heirloom apple tree growing on your property, check out MyFruitTree.org. This service, operated out of Cameron Peace’s lab at WSU, runs DNA testing on a leaf sample of your apple tree that can identify if it is an heirloom variety, what its parents might be or even if it’s a totally new variety. Simple tests cost $50 each, while a more detailed one is $150.
Ben Long is an environmental/science reporter, placed at CDN through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellowship. Reach him at benlong@cascadiadaily.com.
