A gentleman's orchard A gentleman's orchard (October 05, 2005)

By Jane Knoerle

Almanac Lifestyles Editor

Visitors are familiar with the Filoli mansion and formal gardens, but few realize a "gentleman's orchard" grows in front of the house, adjacent to the parking lot.

Once a dilapidated 10 acres that had been neglected for 30 years, the orchard has made a remarkable comeback due to the vision of Filoli's director of horticulture, Lucy Tolmach, and a dedicated fruit historian and volunteer, Todd Kennedy.

When William Bourn built Filoli in the early part of the last century, part of his grand vision was a "gentleman's orchard" to supply fruit for the household. When first planted, the orchard contained 1,000 trees. Through many years of deferred maintenance, however, the orchard declined until only 115 of the original trees survived.

"The orchard was a mess," says Alex Fernandez, Filoli's garden manager. "There was no water, the fence was falling down and deer were everywhere."

Fruit historian, preservationist and garden volunteer Todd Kennedy was the first person to recognize the importance of Filoli's orchard, according to an article by Ms. Tolmach.

"His passion for fruit, its history and the importance of its preservation has been the inspiration for this project," she wrote in a 2002 article in the Sundial Times, Filoli's quarterly horticultural publication.

In 1997 Ms. Tolmach and Mr. Kennedy went to the Filoli governing board to ask for funds to renovate the orchard, stressing the value of preserving older varieties of fruit that are no longer available. The board liked the idea.

That first year 90 new trees were planted. Thickets of poison oak, live oak, and coyote brush were cleared. The next year another 100 trees were added. "At that time, we had to hand-water them all," says Mr. Fernandez. A water system has since been installed.

Mr. Kennedy almost single-handedly propagated all of the new plants, which have been used for replanting the orchard, says Mr. Fernandez. "We purchased root stock and Todd would propagate new trees."

Now there are some 1,000 trees -- orderly rows of little whitewashed fruit trees filling the orchard floor.

There are 55 varieties of fruit growing in the orchard, including apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, quince, walnuts, figs, persimmons, pomegranates, filberts and American table grapes, and a few obscure hybrids.

"A lot of these varieties are not seen anymore," says Mr. Fernandez, "but we have to educate the public about them." Some of the best-tasting apples are knobby little fruits, not perfect red waxed globes. The public, he adds, is "not used to seeing holes" in fruit.

Mr. Fernandez has been with Filoli for 11 years, coming from Michigan, where he obtained a master's degree in horticulture from Michigan State University. He lives on the Filoli property.

About the orchard's restoration he says, "Seeing it come from scrub growth in eight years has been one of my greatest joys."

Any other big changes on the property? "We're done expanding. Now it's time to fine-tune everything we do.

"Filoli is intact. That's pretty rare. This is one of the few places on the Peninsula that still has its original view. The same one that Mr. Bourn saw."

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