Want An Apple Tree For Your Home? Free!

TSKPxIKD rendering of "Community Grafting Project Tree" at Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools complex.

Adopt A Tree To Help Give New Life To Tobin School Apple Tree

Sign up by April 24, 2025: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDGAOqiidEPNRaJM-niLLvWSY3kW0upRJQUZiAzqpRBPqJFQ/viewform

Want an apple tree for your home? Free!

We're looking for people to host trees as part of an innovative community art piece. Cambridge residents are invited to adopt a young apple tree as part of a project to give new life to a beloved apple tree that was removed as part of the reconstruction of the City of Cambridge's Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools complex.

"The Community Grafting Project" is a living public art project commissioned by the City of Cambridge and Cambridge Arts from the architectural and design studio TSKPxIKD. It combines plant science, learning, play, community, and environmental stewardship. The project gives the original apple tree new life by inviting residents to raise natural clones from the original tree.

Participating residents will each be given a young apple tree for their home for free-with free help with the planting. In a few years, TSKPxIKD will take cuttings from your tree to graft onto the new school tree to help grow a living mosaic-a single tree made from many contributions.

Learn How Grafting Works

Sean Halloran, formerly Plant Propagator at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum, will present a grafting demo on Thursday, May 1, from 1 to 3 p.m. in front of Cambridge's main public library, 449 Broadway, as part of the city's Arbor Week events . Free.

Also Make Your Own Wood Print at the library park from noon to 4 p.m. that day.

More information about the Community Grafting Project:

https://www.thecommunitygraftingproject.com/

Requirements for hosting a tree:

• At least 10' square sunny / partly sunny part of your yard More is better; less is possible if you can commit to more intensive pruning and training

• 8 hours of sun per day (in the growing season)

• Annual pruning and training, especially in the early years

• Watering every other day for the first few growing seasons (in summer), or setting up an automatic drip irrigation system

• Annual mulching / composting

• Monthly check ins with the Community Grafting Project team with photo documentation that may go on a website

• Willingness to have cuttings taken in spring 2026 and beyond for grafting to the Teaching Tree

• Willingness to share some apples for future community events

What is the Community Grafting Project?

An apple tree at the Tobin Montessori and Vassal Lane Upper Schools in Cambridge was loved by the city's children and adults. The tree gave them a special place to gather and play.

The school needed to be rebuilt and, unfortunately, numerous trees had to be removed, including the beloved apple tree.

We, the design and architectural firm TSKPxIKD, are creating the Community Grafting Project, a living public art initiative intended to revive the apple tree's legacy. The project saved cuttings from the original tree. Now, using the traditional practice of plant grafting, we aim to give the original tree new life by creating genetic clones of the original to return to the school site when construction is completed.

Dedicated to bringing the apple tree (that we call the Parent Tree) back to life, our project is much more than reviving a single apple tree. Long-term, wide-ranging and complex, the project is made up of numerous interlocking parts, presenting opportunities for learning science, fostering art, encouraging play, building community, experiencing joy, and developing connections to the natural world. Conceived as an outdoor classroom, it is participatory and immersive over time, expanding the definition of public art.

Student Learning, Community Participation

Students, parents and members of the Cambridge community observe and actively participate in the project. They learn about nurturing plants, grafting techniques, the benefits of engineered wood and the process of creating a tree that carries on the DNA of the tree that was cut down.

Creating a Playscape

In keeping with the project's approach to minimizing waste, trees salvaged from the grounds when the school building was demolished will be used to create a play structure. The playscape serves two ends: A place for kids to socialize and play, and, until it matures, a support for the new tree-which we call the Teaching Tree.

Grafting to carry on the Parent Tree's legacy

Taking Cuttings from the Apple Tree

The day before the Parent apple tree was cut down, Sean Halloran, formerly Plant Propagator at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum, took more than 100 cuttings from the tree. Some of those cuttings were immediately bud grafted. As summer is not the best time to graft apple trees, other cuttings were sent into cold storage to be grafted later, when the chance of achieving successful grafts is higher. The goal was to multiply the cuttings through a process called plant propagation. Through grafting, cuttings are transformed into independent plants. Each plant will be genetically the same as the Parent Tree.

Grafting: Reviving the Past, Growing the Future

Grafting is an ancient technique used to preserve and strengthen plant lineages. In this project, each graft begins with a scion-a cutting from the original Parent Tree-joined to a rootstock, which provides water and nutrients. When they connect successfully, they grow as one. We use methods like T-budding and chip budding, carefully wrapping each graft to keep it secure. Every successful graft becomes a new tree, genetically identical to the original. Grafting is also symbolic. It's about memory and renewal-a way to carry something loved into the future, growing community through care, patience, and participation.

Next Step: Nurturing New Trees to Graft onto the Teaching Tree

The next step in the project invites the community to adopt young apple trees and nurture them in their own yards. These trees will grow under local care, becoming future sources for grafting. Later, cuttings from these community-grown trees will be grafted onto the Teaching Tree at the school, using a process called top working. The Teaching Tree will also receive grafts from the original tree's preserved cuttings, linking past and present.

The result will be a shared tree-rooted in science and care, and made possible through many hands and hearts across the city.