Historic Gardens of Alcatraz - A Garden Conservancy Project

Westside gardens

Photos by Elizabeth Byers

Spring 2008 

The Historic Gardens of Alcatraz 

- a project of the Garden Conservancy - recently received two awards from the California Preservation Foundation. 

Alcatraz staff family in an Officers' Row garden, circa 1869

Photo by Eadweard Muybridge, Bancroft Library

Roadside Gardens, 2009 

The Garden Conservancy became involved in 2003 with spearheading the rehabilitation of the heritage gardens on The Rock: now a National Historic Landmark,

and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 22-acre island, part of the National Park Services Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is the GGNRA's most visited site, with some 1.3 million annual visitors 

hopping a ferry ride from San Francisco to see Alcatraz first-hand.

Officers' Row, 2009 

A brilliant team of volunteers have gardened and toiled 

to restore the uniquely stunning landscape.

A tour is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure! The gardens shown to you within the context of history, horticulture, and cultural significance.

 Link to: The Gardens of Alcatraz

on  Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel Buzz ...

- column on the right -

 Link to The Garden Conservancy on: Arboretums, Botanical Gardens, Horticulture

A Sustainable Landscape and Green Roof Garden

Like her design firm’s name, Wonderland Garden and Landscape, Lauren Schneider conjured a magical rooftop plantscape in the sky.

An Evening at the Margarido House, Oakland, California

Benefit for 

The Garden Conservancy

 Thursday, October 1 - 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Join the designers and creators for a private tour of a LEED-H Platinum Rated home, landscape and rooftop garden, designed and built by MCD/McDonald Construction & Development; landscape design by Lauren Schneider, Wonderland Garden and Landscape.

Softened by a sustainable landscape of drought-tolerant California natives & Mediterranean plants, the Margarido House is the first LEED-H Platinum certified custom home 

in Northern California. 

Photos by Mariko Reed, courtesy of Garden Design magazine

Los Angeles-based outdoor living expert Debra Prinzing will be on hand to help tell the story of this award-winning sustainable design project, which she profiled in the September-October 2009 issue of Garden Design magazine.

To Register Online, link to The Garden Conservancy 

on Bay Area Tendrils 'Arboretums - Botanical Gardens - Horticulture'

- column on the right -  

A Unique American Landscape: The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Echinopsis hybrid: Photos by Brian Kemble 

(Thank you, Brian!)

The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Walnut Creek, California

View with Agave salmiana

Mrs. Bancroft celebrated her 100th birthday last year, and another birthday is just around the corner!

Displaying an originality that outshines traditional garden settings, Mrs. Bancroft's garden reveals an eccentric cast of characters, and an enthusiasm for succulent plants that traces back to the 1950s, when she began collecting potted specimens. 

After her husband, Philip, phased out his family's extensive walnut orchards, Mrs. Bancroft began in 1972 to plant her dry garden, containing a realm of plant life that characteristically requires limited water to thrive. 

Bristly rotound cacti, yuccas with fibrous sharp-tipped, lance-like leaves, spiny agaves and escheverias with fleshy foliage assume their positions in mounded beds like a sculptural installation composed of living plant material.

The design artistry and gardening prowess of the garden's creator inspired the founding of The Garden Conservancy in 1989. Having set its sights on preserving our country's horticultural legacy, the Conservancy championed Mrs.Bancroft's 3-acre garden, selecting it as the first to be listed on the organization's register.

Mrs. Bancroft developed a keen eye for form and structure as an architectural student in college. Such skills served her well in the garden's early years, as she sited important palm trees and other arboreal specimens and shrubs.

After being ushered through the folly, you encounter the intriguing rosette forms of aloes, detecting great variety and scope in plants set off by spotted patterns and menacing pink teeth. Among the strange shapes and dramatic textures are tree-like aloes emblematic of the garden's maturity.

The reflections that follow are from one of my first garden visits, when I walked along the paths guided by Mrs. Bancroft.

Delighted, I took in arrays of fetching aloes from South Africa, with branched stalks displaying red buds, opening to yellow flowers. Plants with leaves flushed pink and speckled white, contrasted by much-branched panicles carrying bright orange flowers.

Aloes are garden curator Brian Kemble's area of expertise. Among new hybrids developed by Kemble are plants producing flowers over a long period; with clouds of orange blooms creating a brilliant spectacle.

All sorts of blooms materialize year-round in the garden. In spring and summer yuccas produce a host of towering, cream-colored flowering stalks, while the bizarre attributes of cactus plants indigenous to America are ornamented by pretty flowers followed by plentiful fruits. The assertive plant shapes enhance the garden's organic layout of paths, where Mrs. Bancroft pointed out an area of slightly higher ground with an enticing planting of cacti. She believed it would be a little warmer than the rest of the garden. Some cactus plants exhibit vivid red spines, while Eucalypts make alluring compatriots for the garden's vast range of succulents. 

We dodged raindrops as we entered a tunnel-like cover sheltering countless varieties of echeverias and gasterias: The wide cover built so that people could walk through and enjoy the plants in winter. I gazed down upon a topography composed of hairy-textured to felted to smooth and sleek leaves revealing a rosy pink glow. Huddled en masse, the gleaming flora boasted a scintillating palette of glaucous pale gray to olive green and blushed mauve, with red and violet tinges.

Agave celsii flower

Aloe Folly

View with Dasylirions in flower

View with Hesperaloe parviflora

A unique representation of American style, The Ruth Bancroft Garden is now organized as a nonprofit committed to offering the public access to its wonderland of plant life.

Thank you, Mrs. Bancroft, for sharing your extraordinary oasis. 

Look to Bay Area Tendrils . . . . 'Garden Travel Buzz'

for links to 

The Ruth Bancroft Garden 

&  

The Garden Conservancy 

Remarkable Australians - Native Species for Gardens

Pimlea spectabilis 

Photo, Melinda Kralj 

The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Walnut Creek, California

Eucalyputus caesia

Photos:  Brian Kemble

The Australians Part II 

A Seminar & Study Tour

presented by The Garden Conservancy 

& The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Seminar - Friday, July 10 at Civic Arts Education Center, Shadelands Campus, Walnut Creek

Study Tour to Santa Cruz, Monterey: Saturday, July 11

Cosponsored by Pacific Horticulture magazine

"Refreshing Your Australian Repertoire"

An impressive gathering of experts will advise and enlighten seminar participants, with Richard Turner, editor of Pacific Horticulture magazine, serving as Moderator.

As Dick told with me, some of the most knowledgeable speakers on Australian plants in California gardens are among the presenters. 

Botanist Glenn Keator has spent time studying the flora in the wild. Glenn will give an overview of its diversity, some 25 to 35,000 taxa.

Curator of the Australian Collections at the Arboretum at UC Santa Cruz, Melinda Kralj has worked and traveled in Australia. She helped with the initial plantings of the Australian Garden at Cranbourne, with the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 

The UCSC collection, Melinda's domain, is a magical setting where the scientific aspect of cultivating and presenting these fascinating plants takes place in a garden realm.

 On a winter day when I was new to California, Melinda walked me through the Arboretum's gardens, introducing me to banksias and grevilleas, adenanthos and telopeas, boronias, correas, xanthorrhoea (grass trees) and epacris, among plants boasting architectural forms, volumetric blooms, and textures that takes center stage.

The memory has stayed with me through the years, and I'm anxious to hear Melinda's observations on how to fit Australians into our Bay Area gardens. She'll also offer ideas for mixing them with plants from other parts of the world.

Kathy Echols, an instructor at Diablo Valley College, will share her valuable experience, having gardened with Australian native plants for 20 years ago in her East Bay garden.

Kathy imported a collection of 152 new species of Australian plants to the United States in 1992, including 20 new varieties of Emu Bush, Eremophila cultivars . She is known for her expertise in propagating rare and unusual plants, both drought tolerant and tough.

Visit the links listed below for Seminar & Study Tour details, 

and for additional background on speakers 

Laurence Nicklin, garden designer based in Ojai,

and

Jo O'Connell of Australian Native Plants Nursery, Ventura.

The 2-day event promises to be engaging, informative, and

an excellent opportunity for professional designers, newbie gardeners, and hortiholics who wish to learn more about drought-tolerant choices for Bay Area landscapes.

Eucalyptus preissiana

Look to Bay Area Tendrils 'Garden Travel Buzz' for links to The Garden Conservancy 

& The Ruth Bancroft Garden 

 Link to Pacific Horticulture magazine on Bloggers/Good Green Stuff

More on the Seminar at:

http://bayareatendrils.blogspot.com/2009/06/australians-garden-conservancy-seminar.html

The Australians, Part ll - A Seminar

Correa 'Carmine Bells' growing in my garden

& Banksia species photographed at University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum

The Australians Part ll

A Seminar 

Presented by The Garden Conservancy 

and The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Details soon to appear on

Bay Area Tendrils

"Refreshing Your Australian Repertoire: 

How to mix exciting and appropriate Australian native plants in Bay Area Gardens"  

Friday, July 10, 2009 

Civic Arts Education Center, Shadelands Campus, Walnut Creek

& Study Tour, Saturday, July 11, 2009

Links to The Garden Conservancy web site 

www.gardenconservancy.org

&

The Ruth Bancroft Garden web site

http://ruthbancroftgarden.org/

on Bay Area Tendrils  'Garden Travel Buzz'

Ah! Glorious Gardens - Open Days Program

Sonsini Garden

Edgewood Garden

Photos: 

Open Days Program

Bernard Trainor/Jason Liske

Jocelyn Knight

Don Boos

The Hothem Garden

The Garden Conservancy's Open Day Program

Link to Open Days below

Garden at Paradise Drive

below:

Valhalla Farms

An Atherton Garden

It's that time of year, as the Open Days Program of The Garden Conservancy kicks off, providing entree to 300 private gardens, spread-out over 23 states. 

On view: the work of visionary designers and the dedicated garden hosts who take pleasure in sharing their personal sanctuaries. Expect a refreshing variety of innovative styles and traditions, from sleek architectural designs to a focus on sinuous, organic shapes, or a finely detailed formality.

Garden schemes may braid together exuberant plant collections, illuminate the perfect placement of ornaments, or reveal structured displays where graceful terraces give way to breath-taking views. 

It may be difficult to prey yourself away from the artistry of these arcadian retreats, where the "garden maker..... collaborates with nature to create their own personal paradise here on earth," as Diane Turner, publisher of Garden Design magazine, says in the Foreword to the Open Days Directory.

The first date in the 2009 Calendar is April 18 in Birmingham, Alabama. You can order an Open Days Directory, and view the 2009 schedule of events, at: 

 http://www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays

The Garden Conservancy is a wonderful organization, deserving of the gardening community's support. Visit the web site to learn more about preservation projects, lectures/seminars, and upcoming events.

The Garden Conservancy - Open Days Program & Seminar

The Garden of Flowing Fragrance,

Liu Fang Yuan

Terrace of the Jade Mirror

photo: Huntington Botanical Gardens

Britain has its Yellow Book, and here, on the other side of the pond, we look to The Garden Conservancy's OPEN DAYS Directory for entree to private gardens that are otherwise off-limits. Mark your calendar's with this year's dates by visiting www.gardenconservancy.org, where the 2009 schedule is shown by date or location. Check for updates, as the program is still taking shape.

Join The Garden  Conservancy to receive a free copy of the directory, and more. Or order a copy of the 2009 directory on the web site.

More on the upcoming seminar:

The Influence of China on West Coast Gardens: Connecting to a strong cultural heritage.

This is the Eighth Seminar and Study Tour in the landscape design and history series:

Gardens to Match Your Architecture

It takes place April 3-4, 2009 at The Presidio, in San Francisco. 

Phone the West Coast office on 415.441.4300.

A reminder: click on the announcement / photo in the right hand column to go directly to The Garden Conservancy's web site.