Harvard's Royal Oak Farm apple maze believed to be first in country

McHenry County already had what is believed to be the world’s largest corn maze in Spring Grove’s Richardson Adventure Farm.

So the family-owned Royal Oak Farm Orchard in Harvard went a different route.

“We’re an apple orchard, so why don’t we do apple trees?” suggested Peter Bianchini, the patriarch of the family, which includes four generations living in four houses on the farm.

That was four years ago.

“We weren’t quite sure how to start with everything, only because no one had ever done it before,” said Sarah Bell, Bianchini’s granddaughter and a co-owner of the orchard.

It took quite a bit of planning and work, but on Aug. 14, Amaze ‘N Apples – believed to be the country’s only apple maze boasting “growing, living, pickable fruit walls” – will open at the orchard, 15908 Hebron Road, Harvard. The 4-acre maze, shaped like a Red Delicious apple from the air and created out of apple trees, includes nearly 2 miles of winding trails and more than 3,000 trees with nine varieties of apples visitors can try as they walk through the maze.

“There might be [an apple tree maze] on a property out in England, but it’s much smaller,” Bell said. “This is the only one of its kind that’s been created.”

As visitors meander through the maze, they can try Zestar, Blondee, Grand Gala, Cortland, September Wonder Fuji (early September), Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Snowsweet and Empire apples.

The maze will have numerous ways in and out for those who don’t want to walk the entire trail.

Inside the maze will be three nature-based activity areas with children’s games, such as hopscotch, checkers and tic tac toe, climbing toys and musical instruments, including a xylophone, drums and more. Information and questions about apples will challenge visitors throughout the maze.

“They’re kind of like secret garden areas within the maze,” Bell said. “When they come up on an activity area, there’ll be trellis archways, a garden-type area . . . resting benches.”

In coming years, plans are to add more activities and attractions, perhaps an antique tractor at the center, she said.

Royal Oak used Maze Play, the same company that works with Richardson Adventure Farm on its corn maze, to design the maze using a computer program and GPS coordinates. The maze’s aisles are about 8 to 12 feet wide, with the trees planted 3 feet apart in a series of hedgerows using an espalier system known in Europe, but unique to Royal Oak Farm.

Hedgerows are lines of shrubs or trees planted closer together and typically used by homeowners, not orchards.

At Royal Oak Farm, the trees were fixed to trellis wires and maintained at about 7-feet tall.

“The hardest thing to do as far as maintaining the trees was to train the trees,” Bell said.

Another challenge was figuring out how to irrigate and fertilize the trees, Bell said. Tractors aren’t able to fit through the rows, and the maze has dead-ends. Working with Trickl-eez Irrigation from St. Joseph, Michigan, the orchard used a Solid-Set Canopy Delivery System placed under the soil.

Researched and created by Washing State, Michigan State and Cornell universities, the technology behind the orchard’s spraying system only had been experimented with in a few orchards in Europe and elsewhere.

“It’s the first time this has been fully utilized in an orchard,” Bell said.

Until that system was installed a few months ago, employees were spraying the trees by hand.

Along with the orchard’s 80 acres of apples with 30 different varieties are 20 acres of park and entertainment, including a Royal Oak Express train, petting zoo, carousel, restaurant, market/bakery and more.

The activities take tokens costing $3 each, with the maze costing two tokens a person for those ages 2 and older. For information and hours, visit www.royaloakfarmorchard.com.