The Harrington apple orchard was one of the first places i worked in the garden mowing the extensive turf underneath the aging apple trees as landscape gardener. In 2018, the orchard began a lengthy restoration process to regraft the aging historic trees onto new fire blight resistant rootstock. I’ve been involved heavily in the restoration all the way up to its pressent state in 2025. At the start of the restoration process, the entire orchard of 200 plus trees were removed by a forestry company using a large excavator and plucked out of the ground leaving large craters where the former trees were removed. My first responsibility was re-grading the multi acre orchard to allow us to start the renovation process. Before we even had begun planning the re-installation, colleagues and I installed 100’s of feet of large, main line irrigation and irrigation control wire that did not exist at all in the area. After a large crew of volunteers and staff installed the newly grafted trees, myself and additional staff installed an additional 100’s of feet of irrigation line with emitters to the locations of the newly installed trees to aid in their establishment. One of the additional projects that came with the restoration was shifting the management regime from mown turf grass to a low growing meadow, in line with other projects baked into ecologically minded goals of the strategic plan. We changed our mowing patterns, as well as installed 100s of lbs of new seed utilizing our conservation seeder. Now in 2025 the trees are well established, and the meadow is coming along nicely to complement the historic trees. You can read about the orchard restoration project here The Apple Orchard at New England Botanic Garden