While construction crews work furiously to finish Apple’s mammoth new headquarters in Cupertino this year, another critical piece of the campus’ design is taking shape 100 miles to the east.
In a cluster of East Bay nurseries, Apple has been growing more than 4,600 trees, which are nestled in large, wooden boxes. Some time later this year, Apple’s team of arborists will start shipping these trees two or three at time to Cupertino, where they will be painstakingly planted as part of the broader landscaping plan.
The investment in these trees represents the kind of attention to detail, quality, and finish that is classic Apple. Rather than just planting seedlings and watching them develop slowly over 20 years, as many developers do, Apple is hoping to come as close as possible to creating the sensation of a thick, forest-like wonderland right from the start.
Other companies and municipalities have routinely purchased and transplanted fully grown trees. In this case, it’s the scale of Apple’s landscaping plans that seem to have no precedent, arborists say.
Naturally, it appears to be the kind of thing only Apple would attempt.
"It's pretty ambitious," said one Bay Area arborist, who is familiar with Apple’s plans but asked not to be named. "Some of these development projects, they don't see the value of transplanting these larger trees. They only see the dollars and say, 'Oh my goodness, it’s so expensive.' But some people recognize that if I bring in old trees, that as soon as my project opens, I'm going to have a landscape that is already pretty established.
"Apple sees that. And they're willing to spend the money to do it right. It’s pretty exciting that they're willing to take the extra steps."
From the moment Apple proposed its audacious new campus in 2011, it has emphasized how green it would be. Where the old property, previously owned primarily by Hewlett-Packard, was mostly concrete, the new campus will be an overwhelmingly green space for the estimated 14,000 workers who will call it home.
“Today, about 20 percent of the space is landscaping, most of it is big asphalt parking lots,” cofounder Steve Jobs said when first presenting the plans to the Cupertino City Council. “We want to completely change this and make 80 percent of it landscaping. And the way we're going to do this - we're going to put most of the parking underground. And you can see what we have in mind. Today there are 3,700 trees on the property, we'd like to almost double that.”
For Jobs, who grew up in the region, it was a chance to recapture the lost feel of an area that was once mostly open spaces and fruit orchards before it gave way to low-slung, drab office buildings.
"The landscape design of meadows and woodlands will create an ecologically rich oak savanna reminiscent of the early Santa Clara Valley," Apple said in its proposal. "It will incorporate both young and mature trees, and native and drought tolerant plants that will thrive in Santa Clara County with minimal water consumption. The increase in permeable surfaces will promote natural drainage and improve water quality in Calabazas Creek. The thoughtful and extensive landscaping will recall Cupertino’s pre-agricultural and agricultural past."
An Apple spokesman said the company had no comment at this time about its tree plans.
However, official planning documents filed with Cupertino and other public records from 2013 and 2014 provide tremendous details. While it's likely the precise numbers of trees and the exact time frame have evolved since then, the public filings still give a sense of the sweep of Apple's ambitious tree plans.
Apple has confirmed publicly that the total number of trees planted will exceed 8,000. That’s a big increase over the 3,616 that were on the land before. And it's well over the 4,422-tree minimum that would have been required by Cupertino planning rules.
