Case Studies | Place

The Orchard at White Street Park

752 White Street

Suwanee, GA 30024

Begun October 2012, completed October 2017

Images used with permission of copyright owner. Unauthorized reproduction is expressly prohibited.

About

The Orchard at White Street Park was designed to combine the enjoyment of edible fruit with play features rooted in the natural playground movement.

Project Details

Description

The Orchard at White Street Park was designed to combine the enjoyment of edible fruit with play features rooted in the natural playground movement. The purpose of the Orchard was to provide an alternative to typical playgrounds and nurture curiosity among children and adults about the growth and life cycles of fruiting plants. The project was initiated by a local landscape architect and aligned with the City’s vision for an undeveloped future phase of this park. While there was no formal public input process, the design was refined and adjusted over a long period with input from City planning, public works, and elected officials. Ultimately, the final design and construction budget were approved by the City Council. As an effort to engage the designer and the citizens in public support, the City agreed to provide the construction of the park if the community purchased, installed, and managed all fruiting plants. The designer led the effort for community support and raised over $17,000, most of which came from the sale of corporate and personal plaques now located at the entrance and specific locations within the park. Numerous community planting efforts saw the installation of hundreds of plants and have made the Orchard what it is today.

The Orchard is an approximately 1-acre garden within a larger City Park. A perimeter fence with spring-loaded gated access doors prevents deer from browsing the edible landscape. At the main entrance, a pavilion provides shade and refuge from severe weather. A pathway, lined with granite cobbles and mulched with red terracotta chips, provides character as it winds around the site. Over 75 cultivated varieties of fruiting plants line the walkways and beyond. Visitors who wander off the mulched path may be rewarded with a unique fresh fruit or a fun and secluded space to stop and rest. A large constructed earthen mound near the bottom of the site provides vistas for those who climb up and offers two slides, 12 and 33 feet long respectively . A children’s play area features a hand water pump, balance beams, a pea gravel play bin, a musical instrument, and a meandering flagstone pathway.

The Orchard has won local awards for design as it continues to grow. Features like the weeping mulberry tree room have finally taken shape as the tree matured, and the fruiting plants have grown increasingly productive as they become more established. The orchard has also become a popular location for Scout-related projects such as insect hotels, bat boxes, water tables, a chimney swift tower, the pea gravel bin, and others. Future plans include a sensory pathway and enhancement of blackberry production.

There are no entrance fees, as the site is a free-to-access public park.

Other Details

Design Firm

Columbia Engineering

Project Manager

Roger Grant, PLA

Funders & Supporters

The City of Suwanee Council

Amenities & Services

walking paths
lawns
fresh free fruit
play features

Total Cost

$250,000

Nourishing Play: The Orchard at White Street Park

November 28, 2025Ryan Blakeley

Read Our Story >

What if your local neighborhood park let you pick produce while you played? At the Orchard at White Street Park, you can do just that. This one-acre public space located in Suwanee, Georgia combines natural playground elements—like an earthen mound and hillside slides—with dozens of varieties of edible fruit.

The Orchard was designed by Roger Grant, a Landscape Architect at Columbia Engineering, shortly after he moved to Suwanee in the early 2010s. Roger recognized the potential of the undeveloped park space and approached city officials about the possibility of turning it into something interesting and unique.

The earthen mound’s summit offers a vantage point over the Orchard’s playground elements and fruit trees.

“I wanted to combine the concepts of edible landscapes and natural playgrounds,” Roger reflects. “It’s a combination of getting kids outside and playing—which is absolutely critical—with having edible plants where you can pick the fruit and learn from that in a fun way.”

Suwanee’s City Council worked closely with Roger, providing input on the design and budget. The City financed the construction of the park and was responsible for building infrastructure, such as a pavilion, a perimeter fence, and the earthen mound. There are also children’s play features like a hand water pump, balance beams, and large hillside slides.

A hand water pump provides hands-on engagement and sensory exploration.

he Orchard at White Street Park now features over 75 varieties of edible fruit, including figs, blueberries, and Chinese mulberries. “I was really interested in connecting people with the food that they eat, but I wasn’t particularly interested in just annual vegetables,” Roger shares. “I really like orchard plants, I love durable fruiting plants, because they’re such long-term fixtures in the landscape and they can mature and produce more if they’re well taken care of.”

Wandering through the park to harvest fruit connects people with their roots—in more ways than one. As Roger observes, “There will be people out there picking fruit and they’ll remark how excited they are that they can go and pick these, how they had some connection to this fruit growing up. It’s really cool that as yards get smaller and people are living in townhomes and don’t have as much landscaping they can come here and remember their childhood.”

The park continues to bear fruit, with contributions from the City and local volunteers ensuring that it remains a thriving space. The Orchard has become a popular site for boy scout activities, leading to projects like bat boxes and insect hotels. There are also plans to introduce new features, like a sensory pathway. Roger looks forward to the park’s ongoing developments: “I’m enthusiastic about what they’re doing and about the future of the Orchard, knowing that there has been a good handoff to a new group of volunteers.”

Roger is currently building on his experience with the Orchard and applying what he’s learned to other parks in Georgia. One of these is Old Rucker Park in Alpharetta, which is slated to break ground in 2026 and be completed in 2027. Across these new projects, he’s eager to incorporate features such as a sensory garden, water play, sand play, and other tactile elements designed to engage visitors of all ages and abilities. “We’ll continue to refine the outdoor experience for kids and create special places they want to visit,” Roger says.

The future for natural playgrounds with edible plants is ripe with possibility. By blending nature, nourishment, and play, these spaces are creating new and exciting ways for communities to connect with each other and their environment.