The Old SDC Orchard is a Rare Treasure

We suspect many people don't know about the beautiful old orchard located on the hills behind Sonoma Developmental Center. It was planted between 1908 and 1912, back when SDC was known as Sonoma State Hospital, and until the mid-1960s, the 100-acre orchard was tended by both hospital staff and patients.

Along with the hospital's dairy farm, piggery, poultry house and vegetable garden, the orchard enabled the Center to operate nearly self-sufficiently for many decades.
The Center stopped using the orchard when staff and patient numbers began to decline and it could no longer be maintained, but many of the trees still remain and now the area known as The Old Orchards is part of Jack London State Park.

Last spring the National Park Service and California State Parks conducted an historic orchard management workshop at the SDC orchard. Old orchards are considered valuable historical landscapes in their own right, and the orchard at SDC is considered especially important because it's one of the few remaining historic orchards in California that was part of a self-sustaining farm colony.
Below is a video from that workshop. It includes some interesting historical views of the state hospital and beautiful shots of the old orchard in spring.