Greg Bozzo drives a 4×4 through a tree farm that has grown up next to an industrial area on Rossi Lane in Gilroy.
He points to rows of valley oaks and says that a year ago the trees were half the size they are now. Native California trees love the dirt and weather here, and are growing at a pace they often struggle to keep up with.
The 40-acre property is owned by Google, the Silicon Valley tech giant, which purchased the Gilroy property in 2019 with the goal of environmentally responsible tree-growing for its future and current campus sites.
But Google recently reassessed its real estate portfolio, giving up office space on the north end of the county, at a time of remote work and a changing economy.
As a result, the 15,000 trees growing in Gilroy—including coastal oaks, alders, willows, California maples, and more—not all end up in a Google project as originally intended.
Bozzo, the owner of Gilroy-based GB Landscape Services and operator of the farm, has now been tasked with selling many of the trees to the public, including to contractors working on building projects across the Bay Area and beyond. Before that can happen, however, Bozzo has applied to the state to convert his business into a nursery, which he says will be completed in the coming weeks.
“Google is still committed to the idea of growing trees in an environmentally friendly way, but now we need those trees to have a home,” he said.
GB Landscape Services was commissioned as operator in December 2021 and began clearing the cheese weed that had taken over the land as it had not been farmed for many years. The 15,000 trees were planted between March and autumn 2022.
Each tree was planted in a cloth bag, Bozzo explained, so the roots could break through and continue their way through the soil, rather than being trapped in a container that forces them to spin and go nowhere.
With the sacks, the trees not only build a stronger root system, but also produce a larger trunk. Bozzo also says that by using drip irrigation, the farm uses 70% less water than a traditional farm that grows trees in containers and there is no runoff.
But when the trees begin to branch out and tower over the land, their value reaches a peak, depending on their size, because the larger they are, the more difficult and expensive they are to transport.
The 10-strong full-time staff not only mechanically remove weeds from the rows – as no synthetic herbicides are allowed – but also prune the trees daily to keep them at a reasonable size. Because of the speed at which trees are growing, such a process is underway.
“It’s part of our challenge,” Bozzo said. “They grow so fast.”
One of Google’s goals with the project is to incorporate the property into the Gilroy community, Bozzo said.
This is how Bozzo came up with the idea of not only enabling the employees to grow their own vegetables, but also opening a community garden.
The 0.5 acre lot in front of the Rossi Lane property is land shared by 32 families who grow corn, tomatoes, Swiss chard and more. Google is providing the water via hand hoses and an underground drip system, as well as electricity, while GB Landscape Services is providing the labor and materials. Local farmers and a Gilroy gardening group donated various equipment.
“It’s a cool little community out here,” Bozzo said, adding that the families help each other with gardening while also sharing their harvest. “That part was really, really rewarding.”
One evening recently, Jorge Mendoza and others were tending to their crops. He said that visiting the community garden gives him “great pleasure”.
“You meet people here and we share what comes out of the garden,” Mendoza said. “It’s like a family: we come here, get to know each other and help each other. It’s so relaxing to be out here in the evenings as the sun goes down. It’s peaceful and it’s what our community needs.”
He praised the well-designed garden, from the paths, the irrigation to the flower beds.
“There’s so much growing here, and people love it,” Mendoza said.
Tarmo Hannula contributed to this article.
gilroydispatch.com
https://gilroydispatch.com/google-gilroy-farm-plans-sell-trees-public/
