Reviving DuPont’s Historic Orchard

Nestled in Edmonds Marsh, lives a historic orchard which in recent years, only the local raccoons paid much attention to. Now, with the help of volunteers, there is hope that DuPont’s historic orchard can continue on for years to come, and be enjoyed by all residents and visitors.

The idea for an orchard renovation project began when the DuPont Tourism Coordinator, Pat Malone, stumbled upon fruit trees while walking around Edmonds Marsh. She later went on the Internet to research various tourist attractions and discovered that orchards have their own niche of tourists.

“I want to create a tourist attraction and at the same time practice good stewardship for the orchard,” said Malone. Last fall Shaun Shepherd, an orchard identification specialist from Portland Home Orchard Society, volunteered to spend five hours walking through the old orchard area. He identified nine trees at that time as heirloom variety apple and pear trees. There are also plum thickets that have not been officially identified, but they are heirloom as well and survive without assistance. It can be difficult to identify these trees since they are growing among the massive amount of plants and other trees in Edmonds Marsh.

The City of DuPont decided to budget $3,500 for an arborist out of the lodging tax fund to go in and work on the nine trees, because it was obvious that some of them were near death. The arborist found four more trees which made the count grow to 13. Several of the varieties can no longer be found in other orchards.  The trees range in health from good to poor. The two weakest trees would have died within a two years if they had not received care. The arborist, Jan Cnossen of South Sound Treescapes in Olympia, is under a contract with the city. He will be treating the diseased trees, mulching and pruning when the time is appropriate. The city has paid the arborist $3,300.

Before this project, the last time anyone identified fruit trees in the orchard was 1984. There were 28 trees at the time. “It’s a shame that we’ve lost over half of the trees in 25 years,” said Malone. On April 24, for Park Appreciation Day, eight residents along with the arborist and Malone cleared out the brush from underneath the trees. This was an effort to help them get as much nutrients from the soil as possible. Joanna Kay from Olympia has volunteered to do tree grafting for free. She is a retired nursery and grafting specialist, and she is also planning to do a GPS mapping of the various trees’ locations so it will be easier to locate them. The grafts will be taken from the old trees and put on younger, sustainable trees. The young tree will then become a host and grow as a strain of the old species. A plan will be drawn up regarding how many grafts should be done with each tree and locating trees that can be used as hosts.

Malone will be reporting to the Tourism Board, Tree Advisory Board, and Parks and Recreation about what should be done with the orchard. She will be bringing them up to date on what has been completed thus far, and then a decision will be made regarding what trees will become host trees, and how many trees the city wants in the end. Meetings will take place this summer.  “We need a plan. So far everyone has been very excited about the project,” said Malone. She went on to say, “We hope to continue to keep things at a low cost.”

One of the next steps will be placing a sign warning people not to sit or climb on the trees. This could be very dangerous since some of the trees are very frail and hollow. There is no known written history of the orchard, but an oral history is being collected from long-time citizens of DuPont. If anyone has information regarding the orchard’s history or wants to volunteer with the orchard project, feel free to contact Pat Malone at the DuPont Visitor Information Center, 253-576-0696. 

The History behind the Orchard

• Nobody knows when the orchard was planted, or who may have planted it, but by narrowing down the ages of the trees the DuPont Historical Society has been able to gather some clues. The orchard could have been planted as early as 1883 by the Hudson Bay Company, but it appears that it was most likely planted closer to the turn of the century. Some believe Edward Huggins may have been the man behind the orchard. Huggins was a former Hudson Bay Company employee who bought the land from his former employer and had it under his possession until he sold it to the DuPont Company in 1906. Some believe that the orchard was planted in Edmonds Marsh because it is a natural water source. This is also the reason some of the trees have survived for over 100 years with little or no care.