Our series on public gardens
We want to encourage you to stroll through the many public gardens in our area. Periodically we'll feature one and tell you how to get there as well as what's blooming and growing. We hope you'll take the time to meander through these lovely gardens.
– Pat Rubin

It's called Officer's Row – a name that harkens back to its early 20th century military days. The garden that now occupies the space where three Victorian houses once stood is almost hidden.

In fact, you wouldn't know it existed unless you accidentally looked down as you walked up, up the long roadway leading to the cellblock.

Fuchsias dangle dainty purple-and-white flowers over pathways. Masses of pink Jupiter's beard have insinuated themselves in the crevices of the long- abandoned walls.

Geraniums, snapdragons, cheery orange gaillardias, sunny-yellow gazanias, and roses, yes, glorious roses in full bloom, bask in the sunlight and soak up the warmth from the surrounding walls. Officer's Row is secluded, quiet.

Gardener Shelagh Fritz takes a break, leans against the crumbling brick and looks out over the water toward the stunning San Francisco skyline.

It's hard to believe this garden is on Alcatraz, she says, and just below the cell house where many hardened criminals spent years of their sentences.

Fritz is "The Rock's" full-time gardener. She's part of a team composed of the Garden Conservancy, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the National Park Service, working to restore the gardens of Alcatraz. Vintage photographs and historical records guide the way.

"You can't help but wonder what life was like, what prisoners thought, whether the beautiful gardens made any impression," she says as she snips spent flowers from the geraniums.

The towering, ominous cellblock dominates the view above Officer's Row. Its windows, perched high up on its walls, let in plenty of light for those imprisoned inside, but likely afforded the prisoners no view of the beauty just outside their walls.

Long famous for being a prison with no escape, Alcatraz also has a long history of gardening. It's an amazing story of survival against tough odds. Alcatraz has no fresh water source. Barges delivered soil from nearby Angel Island and the Presidio in San Francisco.

"In the early 1900s, military and civic beautification projects provided trees, shrubs and many pounds of seed for island landscaping," says Alcatraz Historic Gardens project manager Carola Ashford. "Alcatraz residents, Army staff and prisoners, and later penitentiary inmates, staff and their families, all tended these plantings."

Restoring the gardens was a daunting task. They'd been neglected since the prison closed in 1963. Ivy, brambles, sweet peas, nasturtium and honeysuckle gone wild covered every inch of the gardens. Thousands of seagulls and cormorants had claimed the island for nesting.

Work began in 2003. Volunteers have since logged almost 5,000 hours in the garden.

They cleared out tons of undergrowth and debris. Beneath the bramble they discovered more than 145 varieties of plants that had survived with no care for 40 years. Shrubs, bulbs, perennials came back to life. Old-fashioned fuchsias, roses and succulents reappeared.

These plants were introduced to Alcatraz – many of them more than a century ago – by those who worked at the prison. Freddie Reichel, secretary to the warden from 1934 to 1941, brought in rare plants. Prison staff members favored roses and fuchsias, while the few inmates allowed to garden preferred brightly colored flowers, Fritz says.

The gardens are divided into five main areas: Main Road, Officer's Row, Warden's House/Cell House Slope, and two gardens on the west side.

Main Road garden, built in 1853, is the first garden visitors see, just as visitors did long ago. The Army planted gardens in the walls that led up to the cell block.

"Everything was very tidy and manicured. The military wanted to make a good impression on visitors, so the flower beds were immaculate," Fritz says. "The hillsides were neat, no places for prisoners to escape and hide."

Call The Bee's Pat Rubin, (916) 321-1075.