Washington County Enterprise-Leader
State Park Set On Restoring Borden Apple Orchard
PRAIRIE GROVE — One ongoing project at Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park is to restore the Borden Orchard and make it healthier for the future, according to park interpreter Kylee Hevrdejs.
Hevrdejs and other volunteers helped plant apple trees in the orchard on a chilly Saturday in December.
For the second year, the state park hosted Guy Ames with Ames Orchard & Nursery in Fayetteville, and a horticulturist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology, for a tree planting workshop.
Last year, volunteers planted 10 apple trees. This year, on Dec. 12, about 12-15 volunteers planted 15 apple trees that included varieties such as Tall Appletwig, Black Limbertwig and Arkansas Black.
Hevrdejs said the public is welcome to come to the orchard and the state park wants to engage the community in helping to care for the orchard.
Ames said the oldest trees in the Borden Orchard came from his nursery and were planted in 1997 and 1998. These trees were mostly Winesap and Arkansaw varieties.
The big “bombshell” Ames discovered over the years is that the orchard did not have any Arkansas Black apple trees.
“It is my opinion, based on my memory and recent observations, that — despite the Borden Orchard sign proclaiming ‘Arkansas Black’ and ‘Winesap’ — none of the large, older trees are actually Arkansas
Black,” Ames said in a write-up about the orchard.
Ames said he probably did not plant any Arkansas Black varieties in the late 1990s because he was considering varieties that were truly antebellum, varieties that would have been in the Borden Orchard at the time of the Civil War. The Arkansas Black dates back to 1870 so Ames said he eliminated it as an option.
Now, Ames said he and park staff are correcting the error on the orchard sign and are planting Arkansas Black apple trees in the orchard. During the 2019 tree planting workshop, volunteers planted Arkansas Black varieties and more were planted during the recent workshop in December.
As older, dying apple trees are replaced, Ames and park staff are using a criteria in deciding what to plant that includes the historical value of the variety, its survival rate with minimum care, good fruit quality and variety traits that can be used in the park’s educational programs to show why and how these apples were important to the people of Northwest Arkansas.
Ames said the newer trees date to before 1900 and most either originated in Arkansas or were known to have been grown in Arkansas before 1900.
One big change, Ames said, is that new plantings will be a seedling or a standard rootstock which will result in the trees growing to a large size, about 30 feet high at maturity.
Ames said a seedling is historically accurate as no modern dwarfing or semi- dwarfing rootstocks would have been available during the time period before the 1900s.
The hope is that as the trees approach maturity they would provide “towers of flowers,” a bloom season that would have been experienced historically, Ames said, adding it will take about five to six years before these new trees will produce fruit.
Ames said the Arkansas Black is considered one of the most beautiful apples known anywhere. The book “Old Southern Apples,” by Creighton Lee Calhoun Jr., notes the variety is not productive so it has not been grown commercially but has the ability to keep in a common root cellar without modern refrigeration. This is why the variety was important to settlers when fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce in the winter.
Other varieties that will be found in the Borden Orchard in the future will include the Arkansaw, Black Limbertwig, Royal Limbertwig, Oliver, Rusty Coat, Shannon, Stayman and Tull. Many of these originated in Northwest Arkansas.