NYC Parks GreenThumb is hosting a virtual event “Open Orchard School: Heirloom Apples and Pears” on May 13, 2021 from 12:00PM-1:00PM EST.
The Open Orchard School is a series of virtual workshops connected to Sam Van Aken’s monumental project The Open Orchard on Governors Island.
About this Event:
The Open Orchard School series gives participants a hands-on, behind-the-scenes view of the creation of The Open Orchard, a future public orchard containing 100 trees and hundreds of rare and heirloom varieties once grown in the NYC region, but which have disappeared due to climate change and industrial agriculture. In this webinar, artist and orchardist Sam Van Aken will share the often lost or forgotten stories of these rare fruits—stories that are woven into the story of NYC itself. Learn about his decades-long project of collecting these varieties and grafting them onto living trees in order to preserve them, the process that will bring The Open Orchard to life.
Facilitated by Sam Van Aken, The Open Orchard. Photo by Sam Van Aken.
The Open Orchard School workshop series is a partnership between NYC Parks GreenThumb and The Trust for Governors Island to bring The Open Orchard to community gardens around the city. The Open Orchard, a project by Sam Van Aken and presented by The Trust for Governors Island, is a public art project to plant an orchard of 100 fruit trees, each containing multiple varieties of heirloom peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, and apples, on Governors Island. Through the Open Orchard School, community gardeners and members of the public will get hands-on, in-depth experience with fruit tree care, planting, and grafting, to ensure the ongoing stewardship of the hundreds of fruit trees in community gardens citywide.
In the spring of 2022, garden groups that have attended at least four of the workshops will be eligible to receive one or more multi-grafted fruit trees from The Open Orchard to plant in their gardens. Subject to approval from GreenThumb. You can watch previous Open Orchard School workshops here.