LA creates first "public orchard"

Los Angeles has created a public park complete with public orchard. According to a LA Times article county officials, " hope the 'edible art' will encourage more locals to spend time there." Apparently it's the states first public orchard with residents planting "27 fruit trees and eight grapevines in Del Aire Park and 60 additional fruit trees in the surrounding neighborhood."

Three artists calling themselves, "Fallen Fruit" designed the orchard. David Burns, one of the artists said, " This is about creating something that is abundant that has no ownership." The Times say's, "for now, a wooden sign overlooking the trees describes their purpose: 'The fruit trees in this park belong to the public,' it says. 'They're for everyone, including you. Please take care of the fruit trees and when the fruit is ripe, taste it and share it with others.'" They planted "plums, pomegranates, limes, avocados and apricots." One of the residents across the street said, "he loves having fruit trees across from his home."

I am not sure how this is going to work. Will the county or residents maintain these trees? Who will be allowed to harvest the fruit? How much fruit can one community member take? The statement that, "this is about creating something that is abundant that has no ownership," concerns me. When no one "owns" the plot, who will feel the need to maintain it? If one neighbor ends up doing most of the maintenance how will they feel when others swoop in to take limes for their mojito's?" How much fruit is enough for one person to take?

Considering the number of fruit trees in the LA area that already bear fruit on property, and then is left to rot on the ground, I don't hold out much hope for this. Community gardens and farmers markets make it because people feel ownership, whether it's a small allotment or selling the fruit at market. This project has the county to fall back on, so their is no sense of ownership or pride in keeping it up. I hope it works, but I am afraid this has the makings of a "temporary art project".

Fallen Fruit has some interesting ideas however, one of which is "Public Fruit Maps".  According to their website, one of their "core projects is to map neighborhoods to which we are invited, mapping all the fruit trees that grow in or over public space.  The maps are hand-drawn and distributed free from copyright as jpgs and PDFs." This is a great idea, and one which may have more potential than the "public fruit park". They have also created a project titled, "Fruit Tree Adoptions". According to Fallen Fruit they "distribute free bare-root fruit trees in a variety of urban settings.  We encourage the planting of these trees in either public space or on the periphery of private property, in order to create new kinds of communal life based on generosity and sharing.  Each recipient signs an adoption form promising to care for the tree — initiating a relationship with it." I like the adoption form which provides that sense of "ownership", which may encourage the person signing up to adopt the trees to maintain them.

Bamboo in the sky

Los Angeles based Urban Air reached it's Kickstarter Goal of $100,000 today. What's the goal? "Imagine floating, globally connected urban forests growing where billboards stand." Urban Air is transforming "existing urban billboards to living, suspended bamboo gardens. Embedded with intelligent technology, UrbanAir becomes a global node - an open space in the urban skyline… An art work, symbol, and instrument for a green future."

"This is the most significant plant disease invasion into California in modern history"

California's citrus industry accounts for $2 billion in revenue. You would think a disease that threatens the industry would get more attention, yet this is the first I have heard about it. According to Yahoo news, "state bug detectives fanned across...suburban Los Angeles neighborhood Monday, vacuuming backyard trees with bug catchers, setting traps and taking tissue samples from citrus in a frantic effort to stop the spread of a deadly disease detected there last week."

According to the article, "the USDA confirmed on Friday what state agriculture officials had feared: Both a psyllid and the 8-foot, 8-year-old grafted lemon-pummelo tree where it was found March 22 in the Hacienda Heights suburb of Los Angeles County were infected with huanglongbing. The disease is 'citrus greening' which is transmitted by 'an infected psyllid.'  A psyllid is an insect that when feeding on a citrus leaf can transmit the disease from one tree to another. 'This is the most significant plant disease invasion into California in modern history,' said Ted Batkin of the Citrus Research Board."

Are you an organic gardener? State inspectors are fanning out across LA searching for the bug, and potentially infected tree's. If you have a infected tree the state will, "spray the tree with the pesticide TEMPO, a pyrethroid-type insecticide that lasts up to 30 days." Then they will remove the tree for destruction. "The state is asking the Office of Administrative Law for emergency authority ordering mandatory treatment all of the trees in the half-mile zone in an attempt to kill the psyllids and prevent the spread of the disease. County agriculture officials are working to educate homeowners by mailing out information prior to a community-wide meeting April 9".

I remember the early 80's living in The Bay Area, helicopters would fly over at night spraying Malathion in an attempt to eradicate The Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Ironically, the man who ordered the spraying then was Governor Jerry Brown, our current governor. Of course aerial spraying would be much more difficult to pull off in today's environment. So for now state inspectors are walking door to door hanging traps and inspecting trees. "In one 15-minute span on Monday CDFA trappers using vacuum-like devices collected 25 Asian citrus psyllids from a single backyard tree in the target area."

I think this would be a great opportunity for garden centers, nurseries, and garden bloggers.  Use the power of social media to inform, and help people understand the nature of this threat. With so much happening in the world stuff like this can "end up under the fold" so to speak.  As the Yahoo article say's, "the people of Los Angeles County need to realize how important this is. It's so common to have citrus in residential backyards, and nobody wants to see widespread losses there."

Here is a post I did awhile back on the original Washington Navel Orange Tree, which still lives in the middle of a busy thoroughfare in Riverside. That tree has sure seen a lot of changes in the 130 plus years of it's existence.