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Tag Archives: Sustainable Gardening
How do We Have a Garden on the Island with no Access to Natural Fresh Water?
Other than rain and fog drip, Alcatraz has no fresh water.
And yet, walk through the gardens at any time of the year, especially in spring and summer, and you’ll see beautiful flowers in bloom. How do we do it?
Alcatraz gets its freshwater in two ways: shipped in from the city, and collected from the rain. The city water is shipped in on a daily basis and is used to supply the entire island: the water you drink, the water you use to wash your hands, the water we clean with, all shipped in. This can be a problem for the gardens as the humans get priority. If the water is running low, our irrigation systems will be shut off.
So, we needed to come up with a way to get water without competing with thirsty guests. This is where the rainwater comes in. The first garden to test out a rainwater catchment system was the West Side Gardens. The large tanks at the back of the lawn collect rainwater from the cellhouse and stores it to be used throughout the summer, and fall. With a maze of hoses, we’re able to connect this system to the entire West Side and water it for most of the dry season. This allows us to be more environmentally friendly with our gardening practices, and also saves the park money.

The solar panels and pump behind the greenhouse. This system allows us to access the 70,000 gallon cistern on the island. Photo by Tyrha Delger
This catchment system was a success, which meant it was time to turn to other gardens. There is a cistern behind the water tower that was thought to provide fresh water to the laundry building during the Federal Penitentiary. Upon removing the covering, we discovered there was over 70,000 gallons of water still in the cistern, enough to water all of the gardens for 10 years! Now there was the question of how to use it, and how to refill it. With a specially designed water pump from WaterSprout, we use a solar panel behind the greenhouse in the Rose Terrace to pump water from the cistern and to the Rose Terrace. From there, the hose is attached to our irrigation system and waters the Rose Terrace. To refill the cistern, we are testing out a method in which we take water from the roof of the Laundry Building and pump it to the cistern. This is still in a trial and error phase, but hopefully we can get it down to an art during the rainy season.
The next development for our water catchment system is to refill the rainwater tanks behind the upper restroom. Currently we have 3000 gallons of water being collected. This supply runs out by early summer and then we revert back to using water barged in from the city. We aim to refill these tanks with the cistern water and keep off imported city water year-round. There may be no natural freshwater on Alcatraz, but with patience and ingenuity, we can make our gardens beautiful with the rain water freely given.
Posted in Gardens of Alcatraz, Plants, Sustainability, Weather
Tagged Alcatraz, alcatraz gardens, Irrigation, Sustainable Gardening, Water Catchment
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The Bee Garden of Black Point and Learning from the Past

Bee hotels are great for your backyard.
It seems every day there are stories about pollinators. There are news stories detailing their decline. There are new “Bee Hotels” designed to attract solitary bees. There are websites dedicated to creating a list of plants to attract pollinators. As gardeners, we know pollinators well. Almost any plant that has a showy flower is likely to attract pollinators. Yet, pollinators are not limited to bees and butterflies. They also include ants, male mosquitos, beetles, flies, wasps, birds, and even some mammals and reptiles. Each pollinator has a job within an ecosystem and each plant has a pollinator it is designed to attract.
Preparations for planting at Black Point Historic Gardens are underway. There is a unique opportunity for us to use Alcatraz Gardens and what we learned to make Black Point more successful. Volunteers cleared away the overgrowth and replanted flowering plants. This gave rise to a noticeable increase in bees, flies, butterflies, and birds.

Native honey bee on Coral Bells, Heuchera maxima. Photo by Tyrha Delger
We know now there are at least ten species of bees in the gardens of Alcatraz, some of them native. However, no study was completed to create a baseline estimate for species diversity before restoration work began. We know the number of pollinator species before the military’s use of the island in the 1800s was likely zero since Alcatraz was a rock with no native vegetation. The wives of soldiers established gardens. These beautiful blooms provide food and habitat for the pollinators. A baseline would have helped us know if our efforts were beneficial and guide us to future planting plans.
As historical gardeners, we have a duty to present Alcatraz and Black Point as they would have been. Heirloom plants are used to represent a specific time frame. Even where we plant certain plants is dictated by historic photographs. As a result, the ideal gardens of the late 1800s through the 1960s guide us; and in those time periods, native pollinator gardens were not in fashion. As we design the plantings at Black Point, we wish to include plants that will help native pollinators but still have the look and feel of a Victorian strolling garden.
Studies have shown planting native plants and increasing the diversity of blooms will help native pollinators. So, we have begun to start observing pollinator species diversity and population numbers. Does the garden, previously overrun with ivy, blackberries, and oxalis, function as a pollinator garden? Does the presence of native California flowering plants help increase the amount of diversity? Do the pollinator population levels increase as more flowering plants and space are made available?
These are questions we want to answer. We can only learn from the past and use Alcatraz as a guiding force for Black Point.

Foxgloves attract pollinators. Photo by Tyrha Delger
Posted in Bees, Black Point Historic Gardens, Gardens of Alcatraz, Plants, Pollinators, San Francisco, Sustainability, Wildlife
Tagged Alcatraz, alcatraz gardens, Bees, Black Point Gardens, Gardens, Habitat, Parks Conservancy, Pollinators, San Francisco, Sustainable Gardening
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Welcome to the Gardens of Alcatraz blog

The Island of Alcatraz, Photo by Elizabeth Byers
I am very excited to begin the Gardens of Alcatraz very first blog!
Alcatraz Island receives more than 1.3 million visitors a year from all over the world; I have been lucky enough to speak with many visitors who came to the island when the gardens were overrun with blackberries and are amazed upon returning years later to an island that is blooming with tended gardens. The Garden Conservancy is proud of what we have been able to accomplish since restoration work began in 2003 with our project partners — the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. With garden volunteers working alongside staff, over four acres of historic gardens from the military and penitentiary eras have been brought back to life.

Chasmanthe floribunda, Photo by Shelagh Fritz
Through this blog, I invite you to follow our progress — recent volunteer activity, new plantings, new artifact finds – and discover the softer side of the Rock.
Have you been to the gardens to see the changes? If so, please let us know what you think.
Posted in Gardens of Alcatraz
Tagged Alcataz Island, Gardens, Sustainable Gardening
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