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by sapote 3310 days ago
By the way, for those who are curious, here's a list of fruit trees that they planted at the new Apple campus:

http://www.cityfarmer.org/treesapple.jpg

(Edit: the list is from several years ago, so no idea if this is a complete list and/or accurate -- I've seen other lists that include a few more trees than are listed here.)
1 comments
drwl 3310 days ago
I'm not sure why the other guy was downvoted. I just read the article and it points out their choices and why: wanted to make it a microcosm of trees pre-Silicon Valley.

That being said you can be disappointed at their selection of fruit trees. It's just an opinion.

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sapote 3309 days ago
"Muffly, who had been sensitive to the native growth of the region for years, got it immediately. “That’s what I’ve been doing — planting fruit trees, oak trees,” he said."

The thing that's funny about it is that the pre-silicon valley landscape that Jobs was familiar with was not native at all. None of the fruits that they are planting are native to the region (though sure, the oaks are). Most of the old growth forests in the region had already been completely logged by the the 1950s (well before that, actually). This article talks about how the redwood forests that covered the local hillsides were all clearcut in the 1800s:

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/cover/1996_Nov_...

Just on the other side of the bay (in the East Bay hills) there used to be a stand of some of the largest redwoods ever known to have existed, that were used for navigation by ships through the golden gate because they were so large.

I get it -- the building is really a monument to Jobs, and so creating his childhood vision of the valley is fine. And it's a private company -- they can do what they want. I just guess I see this tree planting as a missed opportunity, one that is being given far more credit than it deserves.

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nicky0 3309 days ago
What happened to the redwoods?
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niftich 3309 days ago
They were logged during the mid-1800s as SF and Oakland were growing and the gold rush was going on, then again after the 1906 earthquake.

Essentially no old-growth trees remain (one, I think?); but a stand of younger redwoods does still exist in Redwood Regional Park [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_Regional_Park

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