Revised May 2003

GARDENS AND GRANITES, OR ROCKS AND RHODODENDRONS

Prepared by Howard Oliver and Pat Jorgenson, USGS Menlo Park

Photo of Howard Oliver talking to people on tour.
Photo of Howard Oliver (center) on tour of the USGS gardens in Menlo Park, CA.

Introduction - Although this site was once home to a nursery operated by the son of famed railroad pioneer, Mark Hopkins, when the Western Region Center of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) located here in the late 1950s, there were no formal plantings and only a few native oak trees and grasses.

Government-funded landscaping allowed only for lawns and some evergreen bushes. In 1960, one USGS geophysicist, Howard Oliver, offered to brighten up the area near one of the buildings by planting some rhododendron bushes from his home garden. One bush soon became several, and by the 1970s, Dr. Oliver was donating rare rhododendrons and azaleas to the USGS gardens. He was assisted by his son, Bill, and members of Menlo Park Boy Scout Troop 109, who helped to plant and care for the plants, as part of their merit badge training. Through the years, other USGS employees followed Howard Oliver's example by donating specimen plants from their own gardens. Howard retired from the USGS in 1997, but he continues to supervise the care and feeding of these special plants. Mainly through the efforts of Howard Oliver, the USGS center in Menlo Park has the largest public collection, by number of varieties, of rhododendrons in California--the largest collection is at the Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The day-to-day maintenance of the USGS lawns and gardens is carried out by VTF Services, under the direction of Bob Kerrins. [Please note that the numbers in this garden guide are not the same "tour stop" numbers you may see around the campus. Those green plaques refer to the USGS Self-Guided Tour pamphlet available from the USGS Visitor Center or the Earth Science Information Center. Call (650) 329-4390 for a copy.]

The garden tour begins at the large flagpole circle in the middle of the main USGS entrance.

Photo of three granite boulders donated to the USGS by the US Forest Service in 1994

Photos of three granite boulders donated to the USGS by the U.S. Forest Service in 1994.

1. The three granite boulders here, donated to the USGS by the U.S. Forest Service in 1994, are from just west of Sonora Pass, Calif. They are from a rock unit named the "Cathedral Peak Granodiorite," as this pluton extends into Yosemite National Park to the Tuolumne Meadows area, where Cathedral Peak is located. The largest boulder weighs nine tons, and all three specimens display large phenocrysts of pink orthoclase feldspar, ranging up to four inches long. The drought-tolerant plants around the flagpole are fairly recent plantings by the Veterans Task Force.

2. Walk across the drive to the plaza between Buildings 3 and 15. Four polished quartz-diorite columns about four feet high are at the north end of this plaza, adjacent to Building 15. There are eight jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosifolia ) in this plaza that produce beautiful lavender blooms in June. Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides ) is planted around the base of the trees.

3. Across the main entrance drive, near the GeoKids building, are three coast redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens ) planted in 1980 and dedicated to former USGS Director, William Pecora. Their size illustrates how quickly these trees grow in this environment.

4. Along the narrow driveway between the redwoods and Building 20 are 28 camellias, 'Kanjiro Sasang,' planted in the spring of 1999. They will be covered with beautiful pink blooms each November and December, and eventually will reach a height of 12 to 15 feet, providing an attractive, year-round hedge. At the end of the camellia hedge is the first of several rose gardens, featuring tea, floribunda, and tree roses.

5. On the east corner of Building 1, is a collection of 13 different types of purple rhododendrons. Most of the plants bloom from early April through May, with a few blooming throughout the summer months. Across the sidewalk, next to the rock specimen from Antarctica, are two very rare plants. The one nearest to the rock is 'Prunefolium,' an azalea native to the mountains of North Carolina. Howard Oliver planted it here in 1990, and to his knowledge it is the only specimen of its kind in the state of California. In mid-May to late-June, it is covered with hundreds of yellow blooms. Another rare plant is the seven-foot-tall specimen of 'Gardenia Cornuta,' which was introduced to the United States in 1987, from South Africa, and this Cornuta was the first to be test-grown in the Bay Area.

Photo of area known to USGS employees as "azalea alley."

Photo (close up) of beautiful pink evergreen azalea.
Photo (close up) of pink evergreen azalea along the north side of Building 1.

6. Along the northeast wall of Building 1 is what is familiarly known to USGS employees as "azalea alley," where four dozen evergreen azaleas of Blue Danube, Pink Champagne, and Perle de Sweynaerde bloom each April.

7. On both sides of the door, near the north corner of Building 1, are two famous rhododendrons, 'Furnivall's Daughter,' on the left, and on the right R. maddennii , a rare white species from the Himalayas, with glossy leaves and beautiful blooms in late June and early July. Directly across the sidewalk, near the petrified log, are two other rare, white rhododendrons that bloom in May-- R. inequale , and 'Harry Tagg.' Tagg is the best new maddennii hybrid from Scotland, and is heavily budded.

8. Turning left around the end of Building 1, we pass by a row of 40 young Japonica camellias, 'Nuccios Pearl,' that were planted in the spring of 1999. Each plant has numerous variegated pink blooms starting in late February. They will reach a mature height of six feet.

9. Rounding the corner of Building 1, we enter the courtyard between Buildings 1 and 2: On your left, on either side of this entrance to Building 1, are two plants of a very sun-tolerant deciduous azalea, 'Occidentale Mrs Betty Oliver.' These plants, which are a rare form of the native California azalea 'Occidentale,' were discovered by Howard Oliver in 1965, in the hills above Watsonville. (1) Along the right side of the walkway are five sun-loving azaleadendrons , which are crosses of azaleas and rhododendrons, named 'Martha Isaacson.' These rare plants were donated to the USGS by the hybridizer, Maury Sumner of San Francisco.

10. On your right, along the wall of Building 2, are plants that get only morning sun, which is ideal for the camellias and rhododendrons planted there. To the right of the middle entrance to Building 2 are two R. yakushimanum 'Pierce Form' and 'Helen Schiffner' and two camellias called 'Chyrsantha #1.' Left of the single door are several white-flowering rhododendrons, including R. nuttalii , a maddennii species from the Himalayas, which displays huge, white, trumpet-shaped trusses in late spring. Beyond, four plants of 'Helen Schiffner' are smaller, but beautifully shaped, with white trusses of flowers in late April and early May.

In the center of this courtyard is a large granite block, flanked here, on its back side by two large camellias, 'Harold Page' (left) and 'Debut' (right), and in the center, the rhododendron, 'Pink Beauty.' To the left of 'Harold Page' is another beautiful 'Dahlohnega' camellia and a rhododendron, 'Countess of Haddington,' showing off its beautiful pink trumpets. To the right of the nearby entrance to Building 2 is an 'In the Pink' camellia, and the rhododendron, 'Nan.'

11. We go around to the front side of the large granite slab, which was presented to the USGS by the Earth Sciences Department of Stanford University. It has a 6-to-8-inch-wide vein of pegmatite (coarse feldspar and quartz crystals) and makes an excellent background for the USGS nameplate. Overhead, a sturdy arbor supports wisteria vines (Wisteria frutescens ) that were planted here 40 years ago. In March the vines are festooned with large, fragrant lavender trusses.

On the NE side of this arbor walkway, the central plant in this bed is a large rhododendron named 'Unique,' which was the first one planted here by Howard Oliver, in 1962. It has blossoms of light yellow, tinged with pink, and blooms from mid-April to mid-May. To the left of Unique are four rare, pale-yellow camellias, named 'Dahlohnega.' At the rear of the bed are tall, pink rhododendrons from the Himalayas, called R. Davidsonianum .

The geological focus of this area, on your right, is a 2-1/2 ton specimen of orbicular diorite, collected from east of Shaver Lake in the Sierra Nevada by USGS geologist James Moore. Directly behind the orbiculite is a very rare Maddennii rhododendron, named 'Mi Amor,' which blooms in early May, with large, fragrant, white trusses. To the right of the slab are six large 'Beauty of Littleworth' rhododendrons, planted along the north side of Building 2. These plants are covered with huge white trusses, each nearly a foot in diameter, that usually peak in the third week in April. At their base are two plants of 'Red Olympia,' which bloom about the same time. To the left of the orbicular diorite is a rare, deciduous magnolia tree, Magnolia x veitchii 'Peter Veitch,' which is a cross of M. cambellii , and M. denudata , hybridized in England from these Himalayan parents. This tree is adorned with about 1,000 large pink blooms throughout the month of March.

12. Going around the east corner of Building 2, you will encounter a large rock specimen of blue schist, collected in the Marin Headlands, five miles north of San Francisco. To the right of the blue schist, towering over the M. x Veitchii , is a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides ) tree. Unlike our native California redwoods, this deciduous tree drops its needles each autumn and gets new ones each spring. These trees, which were widespread on North America millions of years ago, and are well known from the fossil record, were thought to be extinct until 1946, when a small living grove was discovered in China. Since that time, a limited number of seedlings have been planted in temperate climates around the world. We are privileged to have one of these trees on the USGS campus.

To the left of the Dawn Redwood and the blue schist are two Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron gigantea ) from Kings Canyon National Park. These redwoods are planted in a mixture of fir bark and lava rock to replicate their native soil.

13. The inner courtyard of Building 2 has numerous plantings of rhododendrons and camellias.

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