The Gardens of Alcatraz, with Shelagh Fritz

That's incredible.

And so, you know, we're gonna move now to the gardens of Alcatraz, and I'm sure most listeners will have a general understanding.

They have sort of popped up in our garden world imagination multiple times over the course of their history.

I think the last, like, big push, um, besides some open days, was when the Garden Conservancy took the gardens on.

Uh, a- and that would've been, I think, sort of the late '90s, because I was hired by House & Garden to actually fly to San Francisco, go out to the gardens, write about the, the, you know, the state they were in at that moment, and that was when the Garden Conservancy, I believe, had just taken them on as one of their restoration garden projects.

And so to, like, pick up the story there, I think is really fun.

As you said, like, where is Alcatraz? Is it not in the middle of the ocean, Sheila?

[laughs] Yeah.

And, um, give us...

You know, I mean, this is a very long history.

It, it could be its own book.

So give us the sort of highlight timeline of what it started as, what it became, what it morphed into th- that led to that moment that you, um, just described of 40 years of overgrowth.

The Rock, Alcatraz, is, um, native to the Ramaytush Ohlone land of San Francisco, and still is unceded land.

In the 1800s, gold was discovered in, um, the Sierras.

So the gold was coming down, being shipped downriver to the San Francisco Bay, and the military saw a need to protect the gold, and so they claimed Alcatraz and built a fortress there.

So that aligned with two other forts being built at both ends of where the G- Golden Gate Bridge now is.

So that formed a triangle of defense.

So on Alcatraz, they brought soil in, 'cause there wasn't soil or actually even water-

Which is why it's called The Rock, right? It is literally a rock in the middle of the bay.

Yes, yes.

Um, so the island slowly started being transformed.

The military blasted away, um, the rock to create level building spaces, um, built a fortress basically right on top, uh, the citadel that's no longer there.

They carved into the hillsides the roadway that is still there now, and brought the soil on- To hold the cannons in place that line the island for that protection.

So gardens weren't really intended in the beginning.

It was really that fortress.

That's incredible.

And so, you know, we're gonna move now to the gardens of Alcatraz, and I'm sure most listeners will have a general understanding.

They have sort of popped up in our garden world imagination multiple times over the course of their history.

I think the last, like, big push, um, besides some open days, was when the Garden Conservancy took the gardens on.

Uh, a- and that would've been, I think, sort of the late '90s, because I was hired by House & Garden to actually fly to San Francisco, go out to the gardens, write about the, the, you know, the state they were in at that moment, and that was when the Garden Conservancy, I believe, had just taken them on as one of their restoration garden projects.

And so to, like, pick up the story there, I think is really fun.

As you said, like, where is Alcatraz? Is it not in the middle of the ocean, Sheila?

[laughs] Yeah.

And, um, give us...

You know, I mean, this is a very long history.

It, it could be its own book.

So give us the sort of highlight timeline of what it started as, what it became, what it morphed into th- that led to that moment that you, um, just described of 40 years of overgrowth.

The Rock, Alcatraz, is, um, native to the Ramaytush Ohlone land of San Francisco, and still is unceded land.

In the 1800s, gold was discovered in, um, the Sierras.

So the gold was coming down, being shipped downriver to the San Francisco Bay, and the military saw a need to protect the gold, and so they claimed Alcatraz and built a fortress there.

So that aligned with two other forts being built at both ends of where the G- Golden Gate Bridge now is.

So that formed a triangle of defense.

So on Alcatraz, they brought soil in, 'cause there wasn't soil or actually even water-

Which is why it's called The Rock, right? It is literally a rock in the middle of the bay.

Yes, yes.

Um, so the island slowly started being transformed.

The military blasted away, um, the rock to create level building spaces, um, built a fortress basically right on top, uh, the citadel that's no longer there.

They carved into the hillsides the roadway that is still there now, and brought the soil on- To hold the cannons in place that line the island for that protection.

So gardens weren't really intended in the beginning.

It was really that fortress.