My recent apple picking experiences have led me to ponder the roles of urban vegetation. These experiences have also reminded me of a presentation I attended a while ago at the old Gallery 110 in Provo. The presentation was on urban gardening and while I felt the presenter focused too much on symbolic acts of urban guerrilla environmentalism that ultimately couldn’t effect any change, it was a useful experience for pointing out that most city plants exists only for beautification purposes.
The apple trees that Laura and I recently found and harvested are a good example of this fact. The trees provide shade and look nice, and for most people that’s apparently all they’re good for. Similarly, Provo and BYU campus have numerous plum trees all over, but they’re trimmed to minimize how much fruit they produce because the fruit is seen as a nuisance that dirties sidewalks and streets. And of course, most lawns, trees, and bushes in urban environments bear no fruit at all and simply exist for people to enjoy.
I appreciate plants that beautify, but picking bag after bag of apples recently has led me to consider more seriously why urban vegetation can’t be visually pleasing and productive. Would Provo’s plum or apple trees be any less pretty, for example, if they were pruned to maximize their fruit yield instead of being trimmed to eliminate it? As I run and walk the streets of Provo (and, in the past, other cities I’ve lived in) I always notice new saplings planted in parks and yards. Occasionally these are fruit trees, but usually they aren’t. Why is that? What is to be lost by planting fruit trees more often than simply “attractive” trees? There may be slightly more research required to maintain a fruit tree (though any nursery worker should be able to answer questions), and of course someone will eventually have to make the effort to pick the fruit, but those seem like small prices to pay for the reward of having delicious homegrown food (that is also essentially free).
There are opportunities to turn urban settings into productive gardens right now. Again, Provo’s fruit trees provide a good example. Right now someone has to go around and trim them, so if they’re putting forth the effort anyway why not spend a little more time and prune them for their fruit? Of course, this would take some extra training and know-how, but the fruit itself could easily offset the cost. For example, cities could plant fruit trees along boulevards and pedestrian paths, and then charge local residents a small fee to come and pick the fruit on certain days of the year. It’d be like going to a farmers market, except that the “venders” (i.e. the trees) would be spread throughout the city and people would get to pick the fruit themselves. Cities could make a little extra cash, people would get fresh organic food, and there wouldn’t be rotting undersized fruit all over sidewalks. Everybody would win.
I know that’s a simplified assessment of the situation, and I’m not advocating some kind of public orchard system. Instead, I think that urban vegetation could serve many communities much better than it currently does. I don’t think (as some do) that every square inch of dirt in a city needs to be planted with carrots and lettuce (though I’m not opposed to that idea), but it seems that many communities currently put forth a lot of effort to maintain their plants. Why not focus that effort so it produces both beauty and fruit?
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