The Boston Tree Party is an urban agriculture project where a diverse coalition of organizations, institutions, and communities from across the Greater Boston Area coming together in support of “Civic Fruit.” The goal of the group is to plant fruit trees in civic space and promote civic engagement. For the project, each community commits to planting and caring for a pair of heirloom apple trees. Apple trees must be planted in heterogeneous pairs (two different varieties of apples must be planted together) in order to cross-pollinate and bear fruit. The Boston Tree Party takes these trees as inspiration.
Together, these trees form a decentralized public urban orchard. As a conceptual art project, the Boston Tree Party explores the issues of food access; health; environmental stewardship; biodiversity; public space; and civic engagement.
The first apple orchard in the American Colonies was planted by William Blackstone near Boston in 1623. The oldest variety of apple in the United States, the Roxbury Russet, was developed in Roxbury, near Boston in the 1630s.
The planting campaign launched on April 10, 2011, and the first pair of apple trees were planted on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Later this year, the first group of participating Tree Planting Delegations each received a Tree Party Kit. These 37 Delegations consisted of 55 organizations ranging from schools to assisted living centers, synagogues to churches, and neighborhood groups to hospitals. The Kit allowed each community to design and create its own festive Tree Planting Party tailored to its own needs and interests. All across the city communities planted the seeds of Civic Fruit.
In 2012, 18 new Delegations, consisting of 23 communities and organizations, joined the party. A new updated map shows where the apples have been planted around the city, and you also can read the full list of Delegations who have participated since the project started.
Image Source:
http://www.bostontreeparty.org/
Links:
http://www.bostontreeparty.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ZEfvrgB78E