Living link to the kitchens of 1820s-era Fort Vancouver is still holding on, astonishing the orchardists
By Andrea Damewood
Published: October 3, 2010, 12:00am
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Another Shade of Bluegrass banjo player Sherian Wright holds a complimentary scion of the Old Apple Tree while looking up into the original Saturday. About 10 of the English Greening cuttings are known to have grown into full trees over the years.Photo Gallery
It may be 184 years old, but the Old Apple Tree can still throw a raging party.
Kids getting their sugar fix from apple-flavored cotton candy. Couples noshing on mini apple pies. Folks quaffing apple cider.
Something — possibly the sunny skies or the fact that it’s been a hard couple of years for the ancient deciduous — drew some of the largest crowds in years to Saturday’s Old Apple Tree Festival, organizers said.
The English Greening Apple tree dates back to the Hudson’s Bay Company, and is so much older than most other apple trees that a Seattle arborist with the National Park Service is interested in taking genetic samples from it, Vancouver Urban Forester Charles Ray said.
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“They want to know why it’s so vigorous and really keeps producing,” Ray said.
Make no mistake: The tree is a freak of nature, in a good way.
Most apple trees in orchards live for 30 years, Ray explained. It’s the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest to be sure, if not the West, he said.
The tree still produces apples, which work best for baking, he said. A pie made with fruit from the tree placed in the top three in a local competition last year, Ray noted.
But Saturday’s music, food and historical costumes belied some of the tree’s tough times: It has a metal pole in its hollow center, put in some time in the 1950s.
More recently, two of its three main branches snapped off in June 2009. A volunteer Old Apple Tree Research Team has been working since then to get it back into shape.
Healthy limbs were grafted over one of the holes left by a lost branch to act as a “straw” for nutrients and eventually close the gap, Ray said. After vandals tore off a few of the grafts, officials put up a small fence around the tree, and members of the tree team will add more in March, he said.
Foresters handed out tree trimmings for people to plant at their own homes, and Ray says the city has a catalog of about 10 people who have called him to say theirs have grown into full trees.
Sitting on a hay bale and polishing off a miniature pie, Joseph Henry of Washougal said he’s been coming to the festival off and on for 15 years.
“The tree has changed a lot since I first started coming,” Henry, 56, said. “Sometimes I wonder how long it’s going to make it. But I’m glad to see they’re trying to save it, there’s a lot of history in that tree.”
Cheryl Wienecke and 9-year-old Macy sampled some apple-cream cotton candy on a bench near the old tree itself.
“We go to a lot of these things to expose the kids to something new,” Wienecke said.
Macy, who goes to Felida Elementary School, seemed mildly impressed by the tree that is more than 20 times her age.
“It’s good,” she said.
Ray said it’s for future generations that they work so hard to repair and revive the tree.
“As long as it’s still a viable tree and still putting out new growth, I think it’s important,” he said. “It’s the only living landmark that dates back to the Hudson’s Bay Company. Even if it’s just one branch, as long as it was still alive, I think people and the Park Service view it as a historical monument.”
