Cherry Blossom Time

[howeird]

Microsoft Silicon Valley campus' visitor parking lot is lined with cherry trees. I have to cross that area to get from my office to my lab. The cherries are in full bloom, and it looks and smells great! Especially with this summer weather we're having this week (68F at the moment, has been in the 80's).

After passing the visitor parking, the area between my lab building and the cafeteria is planted in white birch trees. Very pretty, but IMHO birch trees need snow, and are not as suitable for a Silicon Valley campus. Cedars would be nicer. Or Japanese maples. Better still, camelias, magnolias, or some other flowering tree.

Meanwhile, lawns are turning brown, and instead of correcting the irrigation and fertizing systems, they are chopping out the turf and "planting" wood chips. Not my idea of ecologically sound landscaping. They really need to bring in a master gardener or similar expert to soil test and tell them what kind of grass to plant and how to maintain it. By and large it is a beautiful, well-landscaped campus, which is why the nasty bits stand out.

Comments

love hate relationship with the birches...

[jschonbr.livejournal.com]

hi,

I am torn with the recent addition of the white/paper birches at the campus. I love having easy access to a free supply of birch bark (Never peel it from a live tree! it falls on its own in good enough time), which I use gleefully in my druidry rituals to start our ceremonial fires.

I spent my formitive years in regions of New York state where the birch is a native tree, and I have to admit that I miss them. However, the way that the birches were "installed" at the Microsoft campus has me really scratching my head. Some of the new trees, are seemingly within 5 ft of the building, which is just a dumb idea in any situation.

To make it more interesting, they are pretty near the smoker zones, which is doubly stupid due to how amazing flamable they are. I would prefer that the smokers have to sit on the edge of the 101 (the traffic side) to partake of their addiction, but I digress.

All of the tree varieties that you suggest would have been far better. I am personally in favor of whatever is the most native tree to our region.

Certain aspects of the campus are incredible as far as landscape architecture go, but seeing something done that approximates the differents zones and is likely to survive without genetic enhancements on a regular basis sounds like a smarter investment in the long run to me... Native is just lower cost all the way around.

And for all the $$$$ spent on our gardening crews, I am still sort of amazed that our totally artificial species lawns are still overwhelemed by crab grass. Drives me nuts. I don't get our American fascination with green lawns. Oh well. I guess we still need to pick our battles carefully.

Cheers,
Joel

Re: love hate relationship with the birches...

[howeird]

Last things first. Anywhere there are birds, there will be crabgrass and dandelions. And thanks to the lovely trees, we get lots of birds. I don't mind crabgrass, as long as it is green. The lawns around campus are suffering from a combination of drainage issues, poor soil chemistry and possibly over-fertilization. The golf course down the road proves a fine lawn can be maintained in this area, despite the brackish water table from the Bay.

Smokers. How about a smokers' meridian somewhere in that triangle where 85 dumps into 101? The side of the road is too good for 'em.

Birches are native to CA, just not the part we live in. But not far -- you'll find them, I'm pretty sure, just past Modesto. Beats what Bill G did in Redmond. When I was growing up that was all douglas fir and pine forest.