Just wondering if people have planted seedling fruit trees in public areas and had success over the years.
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I have some pawpaw and persimmon seedlings I plan to plant in a park this spring. I’ve been hesitant because I’m sure it’s very frowned upon but they are native (why I’m not planting a couple loquat, don’t want anyone to be upset) to help build some habitat; also to selfishly know where I can scavenge some fruit in a decade.
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20 or so years ago, i would take the fallen nuts i found and plant them when i went fishing. Had no idea of anything those days though. Last i checked, they paved over that parking lot but there’s 1 tree that may have been planted by me on the side 
who knows. That’s at much as I’ve done of randomly planting things in my lifetime
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I’ve been throwing all my seeds somewhere, unless they’re good enough to save, I think 1 in 100 could grow into a tree, so I’ve definitely thrown that many, I’ve planted many more seeds, got stopped by Russian FSB or boarder guards in Sochi and as soon as they saw I was actually planting seeds they were cool and just checked to make sure my Visa was good.
I saw a testimony not long ago, a woman threw her seeds on a side hill on her road, after 15 years there were nectarine trees and lots of apples, some plums and other trees too, so it can work!
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I plan to go poke some of my gooseberry prunings in the ground. Next year
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I planted a couple persimmon root suckers in a park earlier this year, but grafting onto established trees works much quicker. Here’s a butternut I topworked onto black walnut in a park back in June:
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I try to sow seeds I save randomly because the thought that anything might grow is enough for me. Haven’t seen anything significant yet but its likely they get removed.
At some point a couple years ago I did throw a nectarine pit out the window while pulling out of my driveway. This summer while pruning things along the road and mowing I found a full 5 ft Nectarine tree with a couple ripe fruit hanging on it! Needless to say I was quite shocked and have since dug up and planted it in my orchard in late fall.
I definitely have planted some flower seeds I’ve saved over the years in community/local flower beds. Theyre not natural anyway and usually theres already some of the varieties I like to plant and it helps fill them in
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Similarly to that, I’ve pulled mango, avocado and peach seedlings out of my compost pile. Just potted them up, I think they mostly ended up dying anyhow but a good way to germinate large seeded fruit.
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Also, last fall I went and planted whole pawpaw fruits in the woods near me. I didn’t check if any grew though.
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Hypothetically speaking, there may be some paw paw, elderberry, maypop, American Persimmon, black walnut, that I may have dropped while exploring off the beaten path. Sometimes they get bushwhacked if they are too close to the edges.
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There used to be a few peach and nectarine trees in the gardens outside of office building near where I work. I planted a few day neutral strawberries in there too. For a few years the homeless people would eat the fruit. Free organic food, and the gardens looked nice, it was good. Then someone important noticed, and the trees were removed and the strawberry plants dug out. Breaks my heart.
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I’m laughing. I tried this one. I had bought a nice fruit tree sapling, about 4 feet, and snuck into a local park one day and planted it. I assumed any staff that took care of the area would be pretty oblivious. But the next week it had been removed. Guess they noticed.
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That sucks. But i know they’re strict on no food plants for a lot of public areas. When i put in my coffee stand, they required me to plant 8 trees of specific varieties and no fruiting plants at all. They said it’s because of animals but I know the real reason is because of people
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Yeah so sad, I enjoyed Rome having citrus planted throughout the city. I do understand the cleanup (more so than feeding the homeless) to be the problem I’d wager. A large grapefruit falling onto parked cars would open up for lawsuits. I think berry producing shrubs should be allowed, less mess and the birds will take care of them anyhow.
Randomly around south Seattle, the city once planted Plum trees that produced small, delicious fruit. I’ve been on the hunt for my childhood memory varieties.
From what i recall, they never made a mess on the sidewalks or anything because the animals would get to them before that happened.
Somewhere between 2005 and 2015, they seem to have ripped out all of the Plum trees.
I grew up all along the western side of Washington state and spent a lot of years in south Seattle before uprooting to everywhere. Never understood why they ripped out those trees… there was a park that i loved that had hazelnuts as well but even that was taken out last i checked. The trees got replaced with something that neither bore fruit or nuts 
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There used to be tons of wineberries (rubus phoenicolasius) in parts of Riverside Park in NYC in the early 2000s when I was growing up. In some of the small nature preserves you could pick buckets of berries in summer time. They were delicious as a child. And NOBODY knew about them it seems.
Now they are mostly erradicated and the area gets bombed with pesticides and is off limits a lot of the year. I understand they are technically an invasive species. But they taste good and are bullet proof producers of berries it seems, the red color is great all around. I wanted to plant some on my property but thatd be illegal it seems.
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Along the wood line where I walk my dog there are wineBerry patches and they taste amazing. The only bad part about picking them is you need to douse yourself afterwards with tick killer. I literally walked up to the brush/tree like and picked a few. Had 2 ticks on my pants and 1 on the dog crawling.
Taste was great tho !
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In the past I’ve taken my raspberry suckers that I pull up and plant them in well chosen spots along a local frisbee golf course. I try to keep them on the other side of a fence or something so they don’t get mowed. There are patches all around and I hope people enjoy them.
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That’s a good idea, maybe I’ll do something similar with my maypop shoots and raspberry also. My yard is small but the world isn’t haha