Community Orchards

Fresh Fruit at Your Fingertips

About Community Orchards

The Edible Landscapes initiative aims to provide sustainable and accessible community food sources while enhancing neighbourhood parks.

The City of Grande Prairie’s first community orchards were planted in 2015, with more added in the following years. Several different types of fruit-bearing plants are located in orchards across the city and are ready to harvest at various times throughout the season.

These green spaces entice neighbours outdoors on a regular basis, where they build friendships and community ties.

Find Your Neighbourhood Orchard

Visit the City of Grande Prairie’s interactive map below for more information on orchard locations, available fruits, harvest times and best uses for your harvest. Only orchards and landscapes bearing fruit are shown on this map. Young or non-bearing orchards will be added as they begin to bear fruit reliably. Due to the fragile nature of our trees and their young age, we ask that residents treat them with care and respect when harvesting.

Please be considerate of your neighbours. Share and take only what you need from these free community orchards.

Find Community Orchards Near You

What Are We Growing?

The last twenty years has seen cold hardy fruit explode onto the Prairies. The city strives to plant crops that are edible fresh right off the bush/tree. Check out the sections below to see what we are growing in our orchards right now!

Haskaps, or honeyberries, are one of the best northern berry crops around. They resemble elongated blueberries but taste tart, like raspberries. They are well-suited to our northern climate, hardy to Zone 2 (Grande Prairie is Zone 3b) and with blossoms that can withstand a -8°C frost.
Harvest: Too soon and they're sour. Haskaps are fully ripe about two weeks after they turn blue. If you bite into one and it's green inside, they aren't ready! Some varieties drop their fruit when ripe, so the easiest way to ensure you're getting ripe ones is to pick them right off the ground.
Where to harvest:
- Crystal Heights
- Hillside area in both locations
- Avondale
- O'Brien Park
- Country Club Estates
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- Country Club Estates #2
- Copperwood
**NOTE: Haskaps are an edible type of sweet berry honeysuckle, which doesn't taste good at all. To be safe, only eat haskap berries from the orchards listed on our map.**
The Evan's cherry, the very first Prairie-hardy sour cherry, has been around since the 1920s.
Other edible cherries for this area include Nanking cherries, chokecherries and pin cherries, although most people would say they're best in jelly or syrup.
Where to harvest:
- Dave Barr
- Mike Fedyna Park
- Crystal Heights
- Avondale
- O'Brien Park
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- Pinnacle #1
- Country Club Estates #1
- John Wallace Park
The first apple orchards that were planted (in Highland Park, Pinnacle Ridge and Mountview) are just now starting to bear a sizable harvest of apples each year.
As these trees are still young and vulnerable, we ask that pickers be very gentle when picking fruit. It's easy to snap branches that will take years to grow back and could threaten the tree's life. Unlike bushes, fruit trees are grafted, so if the trunk is damaged or snapped in half, the tree will not regrow true to variety from the roots.
Where to harvest:
- O'Brien Park
- Country Club Estates
- Riverstone (along Willow Drive lined with crab apples)
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- Dave Barr
- Mike Fedyna
- Copperwood
- Crystal Heights
- Hillside both locations
- Elvera Grotkowski Park
- GA James Park
- Grande Prairie Cemetery
- County Club Estates #2
- Montrose Cultural Center
- Hillside #2
- Avondale Park
One of the most recognizable fruits grown on the Prairies, saskatoons are a favorite with kids and adults alike.
Where to harvest:
- Crystal Heights
- Hillside in two locations
- Avondale
- G.A James Park
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- O'Brien
- Country Club Estates
- Pinnacle #1
- Along Pinnacle walking Trail from Westpoint Drive to Pinnacle Drive
There are two types of raspberries - floricane and primocane.
Floricane raspberries are biannuals - the first year cane grows from the ground and produces only leaves. Fruit is borne on second year canes, which can then be removed in the fall as they are done.
Primocane raspberries grow from the ground and fruit all in the same year. The entire raspberry patch can be cut to ground each fall. Unfortunately, due to our short growing season, most of these varieties won't reach full fruiting before the frosts come, so they aren't generally recommended for this area.
Where to harvest:
- Dave Barr
- O'Brien
Plum pollination is difficult as many varieties won't cross-pollinate each other, some bear little, if any, pollen and some don't even flower at the same time! Try to plant plum trees out of the wind as they can winterkill from winter wind exposure. You can increase your chances of harvesting fruit by planting several different varieties.
Where to harvest:
- Dave Barr
- Hillside
- O'Brien Park
- Country Club Estates
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- Bessent Park
- Montrose Cultural Centre
- JC Mackie Park
- Denise Gaboury Park
- Hillside #2
Rhubarb is one of the most underrated crops you can grow in Grande Prairie. If left to go to flower it becomes a beautiful and striking ornamental perennial and bees love its flowers!
Where to harvest:
- Dalen Park- North Patterson
- Country Club Estates
- Avondale
- Elvera Grotkowski Park
- O’Brien Lake
- Country Club Estates #2
- Bessent Park
**NOTE: Only eat rhubarb stalks. The leaves contain poisonous levels of oxalic acid and are toxic if eaten.**
These Canada Red rhubarb plants in Bessent Park were planted in 2016
This superfruit is known mainly in dried form at health food stores.
In particularly harsh winters, the bushes will die back, but they're so vigorous they grow back and set fruit the next year! Plant them in a sheltered spot to help keep them safe from winter extremes.
Where to harvest:
- Hillside
- Country Club Estates
- O’Brien Lake
- Crystal eights
- Avondale
Prairie-hardy grapes are generally small and contain seeds. They ripen in late September but even though the leaves may be blighted by early frost, the fruit can withstand it just fine.
Where to harvest:
- G.A James Park
- Hillside
- Crystal Heights
- Allan Hauger
- O'Brien
- Pinnacle #1
Early Gold, Golden Spice and Ure grow best here.
Pears are ripe when the fruit turns from green to yellow. If left on the tree too long, they can start to rot from the inside out, so it's best to pick them green and let them ripen off the tree. Leave the fully grown but unripe pears at room temperature and check the stem end daily.
Place pears in a paper bag with bananas to speed ripening, or keep unripe pears in the fridge to slow ripening down.
Where to harvest:
- Crystal Heights
- Dalen Park
- O'Brien Park
- Country Club Estates
- George Repka Park
Currants, gooseberries and jostaberries (a cross between gooseberry and black currant) might not be known to most people, but they can be grown in GP.
Gooseberries are extremely thorny and vary in hardiness, so use caution when planting in exposed sites. Jostaberries have larger fruit than currants and are less thorny than gooseberries.
Where to harvest Jostaberries:
- Avondale
- Hillside
- O’Brien Lake
- Pinnacle #1
- Country Club Estates #1
- Crystal Heights
Where to harvest Currents and Gooseberries:
- Avondale – White Current
- Dave Barr - Red Currants
- G.A James Park – Gooseberries
From left to right: red currant, gooseberry and jostaberry
Where to harvest Strawberries:
- O’Brien Lake
Where to harvest Sea Buckthorn:
- South side of 116th ave. between Lakeland Drive and 92 Street
- NW corner of 68 Ave and Resources Road
- West side of the road between 84 and 86 Ave
Sea buckthorn is a small shrub with bright orange berries that grow in clusters along its branches. The berries have a unique tangy, citrus-like flavor with a hint of sweetness, often described as tart and refreshing.

The 'Do Not Plant' List

For various reasons, some trees and plants just don't grow here. We've tried the following and had little enough success that we aren't recommending them at this time.

That being said, microclimates exist all over the city, so if you're feeling brave, give them a try!

Fruit/Variety	Reason for Failing
'Navigator' Pear	Winterkills
Apricot	The tree can live for years but fruit crops are spotty or non-existent due to frost kill.
Blackberry	All current varieties are Zone 4
Black Raspberry	All current varieties are Zone 4
Blueberries	Require acidic soil to produce decent crops. Grande Prairie soils are naturally alkaline, and so require heavy amendment in order to make them acidic.
Cherry-Plum (Chum)	These bushes usually lose their blossoms to winterkill, and sometimes winterkill entirely down to the snow line.
'Norland' Apple	This variety has was the most susceptible to fireblight disease found in Grande Prairie during the 2019 outbreak. Almost all ended up dead from the disease.
	Young Norland apple tree heavily infected with fireblight

Bee City

The City of Grande Prairie is proud to be protecting pollinators in our community as an official Bee City. Some of the work we are doing to protect and support the local pollinator populations includes:

Eight pollinator gardens created in GP specifically to boost pollinators during times when other nectars and pollen sources are in short supply
Ground cover in our community orchards planted to provide pollen when sources are in short supply
Committed to an Edible Landscaping Policy 212 across the City to plant a specific portion of trees each year that produce edible crops. These trees produce flowers that feed pollinators. Since 2014, Parks Operations has planted hundreds of edible trees, including apple, pear, apricot, plum, and cherry trees
Created a Bylaw that allows for naturalization of areas of land which to support local pollinators
Significantly reduced the use of insecticides since 2015


From left to right: red currant, gooseberry and jostaberry

Community Orchards

Community Orchards

Fresh Fruit at Your Fingertips

About Community Orchards

Find Your Neighbourhood Orchard

What Are We Growing?

Bee City

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