The heady philosophical question of whether fruit trees are art does not seem to preoccupy residents like Virgie Shields, 89, who recalled that the neighborhood was “a mud puddle with polliwogs” before 1950, the year she moved onto the choice corner lot that now boasts a persimmon tree.

“There’s a sense of shared anticipation,” said Dee Williams, an adjunct photography professor at Chapman University, who can admire her new Beauty plum tree from her kitchen window. “It speaks to the future, because everyone wants to see the trees do well.”

For the members of Fallen Fruit, who once videotaped lingonberries, salmonberries and blueberries in the Norwegian Arctic for a project titled “The Loneliest Fruit in the World,” the process of planting and harvesting fruit is a community bonding experience — an act of “social art” in which public space is reimagined. The fruit from Del Aire’s trees is to be divvied up among “host families,” as the artists call the residents, with a fruit map posted on the Web. “Fruit is nonpolarizing,” Mr. Burns said. “When you walk through a place that has fruit trees, it’s typically a place that feels optimistic and abundant, rather than desperate or ignored.”