8 June 08

Gardens Of The Rock

Nobody expects to find gardens when making a visit to Alcatraz Island. Yet the varied inhabitants of the island, starting with the military personnel when it became a fort in 1853, and then the prison officers and their families living on the island between 1934 and 1963 brought plants over to try to civilize the island. These gardens fell into neglect, until in 2003 the Garden Conservancy started restoring them in collaboration with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Yesterday the island was quite crowded, a fine sunny day on San Francisco Bay, and well into the tourist season. (Alcatraz gets about 1.3 million visitors annually.) This is the season when the western gulls take over all bits of plant life — I think there are about 1500 nesting pairs on the island. And on the western slope of the island there is some fairly lush growth that hosts many nesting black-crowned night herons and snowy egrets.

Here are some historical photos of the gardens of Alcatraz.

Posted by at 11:04 PM in Gardening | Link |

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