The Neighbouring Orchard
A guest blog by Annie Lord
The Neighbouring Orchard is a new project by artist Annie Lord for Art Walk Porty – an art festival based in Portobello, a coastal suburb of Edinburgh. The project was launched in May 2020 and will create a network of socially distanced apple trees in front gardens and shared gardens, linking together different neighbourhoods and communities. Each of the trees will be a variety which has historically been grown in the area.
There is strength in numbers in an orchard. Pollinators move from tree to tree, dispersing pollen of the different varieties – bee to blossom, blossom to bee. Underground the trees are linked by a web of fungi. The gardeners prune, feed and harvest. It is a bustling network of plants, insects and people which, if kept in balance, provides a fruitful harvest for all. To me, an orchard is a place in nature where human presence is always felt. They are a place to gather, to sing wassailing songs whilst wrapped in winter layers, a place to harvest the fruit, to sit amongst the trees and enjoy their gifts.
I am in the early stages of planning an orchard to be planted in Edinburgh when the UK enters lockdown. The virus crosses borders, breath to breath, hand to hand. I take a walk and open a gate in a field by covering my hands with the sleeve of my cardigan which I will later wash. I come across an old beech tree, the smooth tree of the bark carved with the figure, 1930, in a curling script. The same number is carved below, slightly smaller, as though the carver had made a first attempt, stepped back and realised that it wasn’t enough. I want to trace my fingers over the carving, to feel the place where another hand has been. A hand that wanted to be remembered. I keep my hands in my pockets.
A friend visits. We sit together outside, two metres apart and each time one of us moves the other counters it with a movement of their own. We are joined, in this effort towards balance. Keep close enough that I can be with you. Keep far enough apart that I can keep you safe.
Even when I am alone in an orchard there is always an echo of another human being. The raised juncture of the graft on the apple tree is a marker of another person. Here is the place where a pair of hands made a cut and spliced together a rootstock and the wood of another tree. Over time it has healed, leaving a visible scar at the point of union. Look how it grows together. Look how the leaves begin to unfurl.
In Spring 2019 I begin working on a Land Mark Residency with Art Walk Porty, an art festival based in Portobello, a coastal suburb of Edinburgh. I explore historic orchards in the area, poring over maps at the National Library of Scotland and searching through the archives at the library of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. I find evidence of several orchards in the 19th Century, none of which remain. I walk through Portobello, looking for fruit trees. I come across a large apple tree in the wasteland behind the water treatment centre, and in what seems like a sign of things to come, a single apple which lies on the sand of Portobello beach. I’m introduced to the volunteers who take care of Portobello Community Orchard and I spend time there beneath the trees, listening to the brook at the bottom of the sloped piece of land.
The next phase of my residency is the creation of a new orchard. In February 2020 I am thinking of potential sites: schools, universities, unloved patches of grass. By March it becomes clear that this project is going to take on a different form.
I imagine a new kind of orchard – a Neighbouring Orchard. One where the trees are planted close enough together that they will be linked by a network of pollinators. An orchard planted in the small gaps in front gardens, in overgrown patches of shared pieces of land.
The Neighbouring Orchard project is offering young apple trees to households in Portobello, Musselburgh and Craigmillar, providing the possibility of apple harvests in years to come. At a time when we are physically distant from each other we look to planting trees as a way to forge links with people in neighbouring streets and suburbs. This individually planted orchard will be rooted in community and as the trees grow, bud, blossom and fruit we will look forward to a time when we can gather together to enjoy the harvests. The trees will be planted in front gardens or shared gardens, ensuring that they are visible to the wider community, acting as markers for people on daily walks, seen from bus windows and from other household's windows. I think of this as a socially distanced orchard which as it grows, will reach its roots outwards, stretching towards its neighbouring trees. And the gardeners who dig the holes to plant the trees, who prune them, who water them, who harvest their fruit, will know that their tree is not in isolation.
The Neighbouring Orchard is supported by funding from the National Lottery Awards for All Fund.
To register interest in getting involved with The Neighbouring Orchard please email annie.e.lord (at) gmail.com with a short description of your available garden space and its location.
More information about the project and how to get involved can be found here: