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Community Orchard

CO: Orchard created and cared for by Climate Action Marple to provide free produce for the local community.

The Community Orchard on Arkwright Road was planted in March 2017 with the Mayor planting the first tree. Stockport Council were keen to have community orchards throughout the Borough and offered the land. MESS members raised the money to buy the trees by encouraging donations from local people.

There are 85 trees of various types: pears, apples, plums, cherries, damsons, nuts.

A group of volunteers help to care for the orchard weeding around the trees and pruning at the appropriate times. Apples, pears in the early Spring and plums and cherries in May, June July or August (months without the letter ‘r’)

As soon as Lockdown 2 in ended in 2021 a group of 16 volunteers met at the Orchard on a beautiful sunny Saturday to catch up with delayed tasks. All the apple and pear trees were pruned and 8 new trees were planted to replace those that had unfortunately died.

In 2023 a further eight were bought and planted to replace those which did not survive the drought of summer 2022.

Over the weekend ...

The orchard will have people on hand to talk about the history and reasons for the orchard with posters explaining the importance of trees, why we planted fruit trees and all the varieties we planted. There will be a "Treasure hunt" for the children and there is lots of room for them to run around and play. We will also have some of our "How to.." leaflets.

Climate Action Marple (CAM) started in 2009 originally called MESS, trying to raise awareness of climate change issues and find local solutions to some of the resulting problems. Initially we promoted carbon reduction measures such as home insulation and solar panels but then after a visit to Incredible Edible in Todmorden, looked to encourage people to grow food, and we built the planters you see in Market street and elsewhere. When Stockport Council wanted to have a community orchard in every ward, we stepped up and raised funds by asking people to sponsor a tree.

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