Prepping for a Meadow on Alcatraz

What a GORGEOUS day it was today! Here we are a couple of days into the new year, and it was clear and sunny. A perfect day for gardening on Alcatraz!

It was cold, though. Very cold (well, not by the standards of people outside of a Mediterranean climate, but cold nonetheless.) The overnight low at my house was 41°F, and it was still 41 when I left for The Rock at 8 in the morning. On the eastern side of Alcatraz, we were working in the leeward side of the island and sheltered from sunlight, and it stayed just about that temp I’m sure. Feet and legs chilled to the knees, since we’re all standing on a rock in the middle of the bay. Once we got over to the sunny western side, though, we were all stripping down layers and staying hydrated. I love how varied the microclimates can be here, even within a few hundred feet of each other.

On the east side of the island I started off my volunteer gardening shift with sprinkling some seeds. Well, actually, I started off by taking pictures. I am very prolific at that, after all. 🙂 (Plus, I recently upgraded my phone and now have the best phone camera in existence. It’s so freaking awesome and intense! Love it.) The historic water tower that is a major feature of the island’s skyline had been renovated last year, but just for show. It’s not holding water any more, but its condition had deteriorated to the point that rusty jagged frisbees of metal were whirring down into the crowds on windy days. The renovation was to strip the old lead paint, replace what needed to have replaced, and repaint it sans lead. This all happened behind a white sheath of plastic last year, and the big unveiling revealed they even repainted some historic graffiti that had been painted on it during the Indian Occupation period around 1970, when the island had been deserted and was commandeered by a group of Native Americans who reclaimed the island for a spell. Back to seeds. I was given a couple of packets of California poppy seeds to scatter about the area under the water tower, now that the work crew area has been deserted. These native flowers will spring up in Spring. A lovely surprise they will be for the unsuspecting.

(As usual, clicking a photo will open a gallery carousel that you can navigate with clicks or keyboard arrows.)

Tools in the Electric Shop building, which is now used as the gardeners’ supply room.

Aeonium and Drosanthemum outside the Electric Shop.

Fuchsia outside the Electric Shop.

Paperwhites blooming on the east side, outside the Electric Shop.

Ferns in the granite walls along the Main Road.

Aeonium along the steps from the Rose Garden up to the water tower.

The water tower, restored with its historic graffiti.

A view through the base of the water tower.

Angel Island glimpsed through a water tower foundation piling.

Golden Gate Bridge, from under the water tower.

Poles left behind from the water tower construction process. I think they were part of the screening fence.

The seed packets to be scattered about.

After scattering seeds (and taking more pictures) I joined the volunteer crew in the Rose Garden for some weeding. There’s a big exciting project going on at the other side of the island (more of that in a minute), and weeding the existing gardens is one of the usual things to be neglected. We all crawled around the roses and geraniums, digging out the Oxalis pes-caprae (Bermuda buttercup) and South African Ehrharta erecta grass – both invasive species that colonize any abandoned inch of ground. No chemicals used here, since the island is an important nesting ground for birds on the Pacific Flyway. Only physical removal of invasives is permitted.

It’s always a delight to garden with the group and catch up on chat and garden gossip. I spent a lot of my crawling time with an annual visitor, Dan, who comes all the way from Ithaca, NY every New Year for a concert and spends a day volunteering on Alcatraz. He works for his local chapter of The Garden Conservancy, who are the funders of the restoration in the Gardens of Alcatraz. It was fun to hear gardening stories from a climate other than my own! I also got to catch up with Marney, Monica, and Betsy, a trio of the Alcatraz regulars. All in all, a very good time.

Some of the crew were working on the massive composting operations, and had the chipper running continuously for three hours! There is a TON (probably literally) of biomass being produced on the west side of the island right now, and it all has to be chipped so it can be sent back over the island for a new purpose.

A volunteer works on the Pelargonium trough along the Main Road.

The view from the top towards SF.

A fern sprouts photogenically from a tiny hole next to a fireplug.

Goose (?) footprints in the concrete of the Main Road, above the Rose Garden.

View northward from the steps, heading back down to the Rose Garden.

Today’s obsession was ferns growing on things. Here’s one sprouting from a joint in a pipe.

Macro detail of another fuchsia along the Main Road.

Fully opened fuchsia blooms on the Main Road.

Cute little fuchsia bloom atop a high wall on the Main Road.

Gardeners prepping the chipper.

Looking down at the volunteers chipping away.

Volunteers weeding away in the Rose Garden.

Something has been nibbling at the tomatoes! The only pests out here are birds and mice that were accidentally introduced when soil was first imported from Angel Island. I suspect mice.

Fern in a piece of broken brick wall.

Gorgeous ferns and moss on the rock wall of the Rose Garden.

Calla Lily in bloom in the Rose Garden.

Chasmanthe at the north end of the Rose Garden. Such a lovely green.

The view eastward from the Rose Garden. overlooking the burned-out ruins of the old Officers’ Club building.

Tiny bloom on a Scilla violacea in the Rose Garden.

Looking north from the Rose Garden you can see the Chevron refinery tanks up in Richmond.

The grey of the concrete wall masked the masses of steam coming off the compost. Intense heat!

Which brings me to that exciting project I mentioned earlier. A meadow! The western side of the island has a large, flat weed patch that was once a manicured lawn. It is unceremoniously known as the “West Lawn”, and it’s becoming one of the refurbished garden areas of the island. The project got started out of interest by local grass expert John Greenlee, but is running as an independent project now. He’s known for (among other things) his book The American Meadow Garden, and is an expert on meadow establishment. One of the challenges of gardening on Alcatraz is historic interpretation. His style of meadow won’t float here, though, as gorgeous and ecological as it would be. Since this had historically been a lawn, the restoration efforts can’t go too far astray from that original purpose. No wildflowers, in other words. The island’s gardener, Shelagh, is working with a local purveyor of California native grasses to get a variety of four natives for a lawn replacement. Assuming the Western Gulls don’t pull everything up to use as nesting material, the variety of grasses will take advantage of the varying temperatures and moisture levels throughout the seasons to provide a continuous bed of grass. Not a manicured lawn, per se, but visually much better than the overgrowth of weeds that is currently hacked back once a year by volunteers.

To prepare for this upcoming native grasses meadow, there is a lot of prep work. The area has to be cleared of weeds and invasive grass. Also, lots of ivy and mimosa trees (Albizia) have taken over. This all has to be cleared and chipped. Once chipped, it’s being reused for a sheet mulch project. Sheet mulching is where you cover the ground with sheets of cardboard. This is supposed to block sunlight from reaching the seeds of the former weeds, hopefully killing them and certainly at least slowing the invasion process. The cardboard is covered by the mulched biomass. Over a rainy season, the cardboard will decompose, and mixed with the mulch it will provide a rich top layer of new “soil” to help the new meadow to establish. From clearing to sheet mulching to planting, establishing the lawn replacement will be over a year in the works!

Heading over to the West Lawn project. View through the ruins of the Warden’s House.

Volunteer Marney weeding out oxalis from the Drosanthemum floribundum carpet on the Cellhouse Slope.

A tiny bloom of Drosanthemum floribundum, with a row of tourists above enjoying the views.

Nice piece of debris peeking out from the Cellhouse Slope.

Beautiful! Agaves on the side of the West Lawn.

Blooms on the Chasmanthe bordering the West Lawn.

Chasmanthe among the succulents bordering the West Lawn.

West Lawn succulent border.

Flowers forming in a red aeonium.

Toolshed Terrace, across the Main Road from the West Lawn.

Agave attenuata and beautiful blooming aloes below the West Lawn.

A whole slew of aeonium flowers forming.

So many succulents! My favorite part of the island’s gardens, really.

View outward from the Main Road towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

The offending Oxalis pes-caprae is really pretty in bloom.

Closeup of an aloe starting to bloom along the West Lawn.

Clearing the overgrowth is like archaeology sometimes.

In person this purple echium was really much more vivid than in this pic.

Much of the area was already sheet mulched by volunteers last week. Far side is still being cleared.

Southward view towards the already-sheet-mulched portion of the West Lawn.

Shelagh talking to the volunteers as we clear ivy.

Shelagh and Dan talking shop as we clear.

Rocks seeing light for the first time, now that the overgrowth is being cleared. The tanks catch water from the Cellhouse roof, and store thousands of gallons for use in the gardens.

Water tanks at the back of the West Lawn, where the slope above has already been cleared. The tanks catch overflow from the historic basins along the wall at the top of the slope, which was originally built to catch water from the showers for use on the lawn. Grey water recycling a hundred years ago!

Steps leading up to the cleared slope above the water tanks.

On the West Lawn, looking across an aeonium patch at the bridge.

Marin and a peek of the bridge, from the West Lawn.

Pretty flowers of the mimosa tree (Albizia).

The Albizia is a prolific seed producer, thus the need to keep it in check.

On one of my earlier gardening days out there, I had a project of pulling the invasive grass out of a slope and planting some geraniums. Sadly, the invasive grass took over that area again. 😦 It’s always a challenge, because that part of the island can only be gardened for a few months, after the nesting season is over. Once Spring arrives, we have to step back and just watch what happens during the birds’ reign. Come October, they’ve all hatched and fledged and flown away, and we come back in to garden once again. The poor little geraniums didn’t stand a chance over the dry season this year. Oh, well. Try, try again. That’s what the projects out there are all about. I also revisited a site where I’d pulled out some Acanthus. Nice to see how things have progressed after my efforts!

After cleaning up, I took some time to wander the island and (yes) take more pictures. I love wearing my Alcatraz Gardens hoodie out there. It’s literally the magic ticket to being able to wander wherever you want on the island (unless it’s nesting season, of course). Tourists don’t have access to the whole island, but staff and volunteers have the ability to visit closed areas. I was able to explore some areas where even I hadn’t been before. I love that! In one area I walked past a cliff stabilization project that I had read about on the Gardens of Alcatraz blog, so it was cool to see it in person. Here’s that individual post. Shelagh also recently posted about the sheet mulching project herself. Check it out!

The grass at true center is the re-invading patch where I had previously cleared it and planted the geraniums.

Acanthus I’d cleaned up on an earlier gardening day, under the toolshed that is the namesake of the Toolshed Terrace.

Closeup of a geranium flower in the Prisoners’ Garden.

Prisoners’ Garden echium.

More flowering beauty in the Prisoners’ Garden.

A slowly opening Chasmanthe flower in the Prisoners’ Garden.

So many flowers in January in the Prisoners’ Garden!

Out of the tourists’ access, exploring the lower roads of the west side.

The city skyline from that lower road on the west side.

A couple of Canadian geese, reminding us we’re on the Pacific Flyway.

This is the area I hadn’t visited before, along the southwestern part of the island.

So many ruins down here!

“Decontamination Station”, the arrow guides you to. Hmm.

Ruins along the western side.

Rubble from below.

A tunnel through the trees! Must explore…

The view from the end of the tree tunnel.

The lighthouse peeks over the trees along the west side.

More west side ruins.

I’m not adventurous enough to go in, but it was tempting! 🙂

Shotcrete stabilization project above the Parade Ground.

A parting shot of the city skyline, across the Parade Ground. This metal basin is used for the Thanksgiving Day bonfire that happens at dawn every year.