Plant food where we plant shrubs

The idea

Swap some of the ornamental planting for things that produce food.

Not every bed, and not instead of parks. Just a share of what already gets planted, replaced with fruit and nut trees, berry canes, herbs — plants that do the same job as an ornamental shrub and also feed somebody. The budget line already exists. The crews already exist. The ground is already being dug.

The objections, first

Every one of these is fair.

• Fruit falls and rots. It attracts wasps, it stains pavement, somebody slips on it. This is the real one, and it's why plane trees line so many streets.
• Maintenance is different, not the same. Pruning a fruit tree isn't pruning a hedge. Crews would need training, and training costs money.
• Who picks it. An unharvested tree is a liability. A harvested one needs someone to do the harvesting, and that's a person or an organization, not a planting plan.
• Liability. Somebody eats something from public land and gets sick, or claims they did.
• It can look neglected. Ornamental planting reads as cared-for. Food planting can read as overgrown, and that's a political problem for whoever approved it.

None of these is a reason it can't be done. They're the reasons it usually isn't, and any version that ignores them deserves to fail.

What it would take

Less than you'd think, in the places where it works.

The answers to most of those objections are boring and known: plant the species that don't drop messy fruit at head height, site them where fallen fruit isn't a hazard, and pair the planting with whoever is already going to want it — a food bank, a school, a community group that will show up at harvest.

Why it isn't happening

Nobody's against it. It's just nobody's job.

There's no constituency arguing for ornamental shrubs. There's no lobby against fruit trees. The planting list gets set by a department with a budget, a maintenance contract and no particular reason to change it — and changing it means someone has to propose it, defend it, and own it when a plum drops on a windshield.

That's most of what this blog is going to be about. Not fights. Defaults.