City Arborist Jeff Tarling Talks With Students from EECS This Morning.

Two EECS Students Helped John Bunker Plant a Heritage Apple Tree – Good Job!

By Carol McCracken  (Post # 1,991)

Sixty students from the East End Community School attended a celebration of the completion  of the Mount Joy Orchard on the hillside across from their school this morning.  The occasion was the planting of twelve apple trees on the slope which brings the number in the Orchard up to forty-five trees.

This part of the east end of Portland originally was called Mount Joy, Jeff Tarling, city arborist, told the students who sat on the hillside in front of him this morning.  “But over the years, people began to slur the words until it became known as ‘Munjoy Hill.’  This Orchard is forever to be known as the Mount Joy Orchard, Tarling told the students from the East End Community Street located across North Street.

John Bunker, of FEDCO, told the students that a long time ago there were no grocery stores, because everyone had fruit and apple trees in their yards.  But now these children could experience that as well.  Bunker said that the young trees planted today were begun in his living room over the winter.  He propagates trees in his home for projects such as this.  “It’s a pleasure to participate in this program,” Bunker said. FEDCO is his seed and nursery business in northern Maine.

Following the planting of the apple trees, each child was given a white spruce sapling to take home and plant.   Kimberly Ballard, of Project Canopy, handed them out with instructions on how to plant and care for them.  Project Canopy is a program from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Maine Forest Service and GrowSmart Maine.  www.projectcanopy.me  Central Maine Power donated hundreds of white spruce sapplings for this program.