TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Tower Hill orchard in 2018 before being cut down.

Todd Little-Siebold and I drove to Tower HIll in Boylston, MA for an apple event. We gave a tag-team talk about apple collections and the Tower Hill collection in particular, and we threw in some history along the way. The trees in the original Tower Hill Orchard were all replaced two years ago after the old trees were removed, having suffered from rootstock decline (they were all on semi-dwarfs) and terrible fireblight. Leslie Duthie led a tour of the new orchard after our talk. Leslie is a volunteer who has taken on the orchard as her special project. She’s done an amazing job. We were joined by members of the Harrington family who generously endowed the orchard decades ago and made the preservation of the 119 rare New England cultivars possible.