An Eden of Trees
20 Sep 2013
This 3-acre property sports only edible plants for people and wildlife alike.
Story and photos by Lisa Truesdale Like any avid collector, Scott Skogerboe will go to just about any lengths to obtain the ideal addition to his collection. He’ll search high and low, far and wide, to hunt it down, not stopping until it’s finally in his possession.
- Above, a tree grown from a cutting obtained from an Ohio Johnny Appleseed tree (below) that was planted in the early 1800s.
“Every tree has a story,” he says, and his pride in his collection shines through as he shares the fascinating details of as many of them as time allows. There’s the pecan tree from southern Iowa, and the oak “from mile marker 140 on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma.” There’s the infant Flower of Kent apple tree that’s a direct descendant of the tree Sir Isaac Newton was famously sitting under when an apple fell from the tree, helping in his formulation of the theory of gravity.
Point out anything in the yard, and Skogerboe has a tale to tell—whether it’s the ‘Edelweiss’ grape, the ‘Opata’ plum, the ‘Balaton’ cherry, the ‘Clove’ currant, the ‘Black Jack’ fig or the Shagbark hickory, just a few of the more than 200 common and not-so-common varieties he has collected over the years.
Skogerboe also enjoys telling the story of how he got his inspiration for an edible orchard in the first place. When he was living in Florida in his mid-20s, a kind elderly gentleman named Ed Levengood lived next door. “His whole yard was edible,” says Skogerboe, “and I was fascinated.”
Remarkably, Ed’s own inspiration, in turn, had come from a kindly old neighbor of his in Pennsylvania when he was younger. Ed’s neighbor happened to be the J.I. Rodale—one of the early advocates of sustainable agriculture and organic farming who went on to found the Rodale Institute and Rodale Inc., a publisher of books and magazines on all aspects of healthy living. As Ed used to tell it, Rodale’s favorite saying was, “If a plant doesn’t feed me, I don’t plant it.”
“And that was going to be my mantra, too,” says Skogerboe, who has a horticulture degree and has worked as the head propagator at a wholesale nursery for almost 20 years. “But I love all plants, so it didn’t quite work out that way.”
Feeding the Planet
Although nearly every tree, bush, plant and vine on the Skogerboes’ property produces something edible, not all of them are people edibles.
- Scott Skogerboe grows only edible plants on his 3-acre Fort Collins property.
To combat this problem, Skogerboe suggests using a cardboard barrier and a heavy mulch of wood chips to a depth of 4 inches around plantings, and to renew the mulch every couple of years as it breaks down into soil.
As far as where to find specimens for your yard, he says the plant sales at Denver Botanic Gardens are a great place to start. Other than that, he says, just find a tree or plant you like and ask the owner for cuttings. More than once, he and Dianne have seen a plant on the side of the road or in someone’s yard and knocked on their door. “We’ve found that most of the time, people are more than willing to share”—which is just perfect for this enthusiastic collector.
