Interesting sequoias

I am approaching six month mark with my Sequoia growing experiment. Here is a snapshot of the most interesting species at this time. I will do a full line up of all surviving plants in the next couple of weeks, marking half year anniversary. 

Opening the line up is the new "dead" seedling #4. #4 was pronounced dead after three quarters of the planting volume fell out of the container during the move from a small PVC tube into a larger one. I decided to keep it because I did not want to deal with throwing it out that day. I watered it plentifully (with about 800ml of water) and let it be till I get time to replace. #4 refused to die and instead started growing after 4 months of stagnation:

#4 April 14, 2013. Germinated October 28 2012. 5 months and two weeks.

#4 remains the oldest surviving species. It went through the period of purple desease and a complete growth halt for over two months after that. After the incident and loosing three quarters of the root it sprang into a quick growth, mostly laterally. The stem looks very healthy and thick, rivaling other best samples. What it lacks in volume and height it compensates in sturdiness of the trunk and heavy root volume directly beneath ground surface, making it one of the most stable species on the patch.

One of my favorite samples is #36. It is not big or tall or anything remarkable at all. It features a gentle curve of the main trunk and the current leader branch on top. It appears to be very stable and is developing as normally as it can be:

#36 April 14, 2013. 5 months.

My younger daughter's sample, which used to live in a special setup so that she could take care of it all by herself has now graduated in a 6" container as well. It is not remarkable in any way except it shot a very ambitious bunch of fresh needles at the very top after the move:

#44 April 14, 2013. 5 months.

This is a picture of death. #121 was a healthy looking sample at the time of the move two weeks ago. I have noticed that it was leaning on one side excessively after the move. I tried correcting it a bit in the next few days after the move and noticed that the root immediately beneath surface was very thin and weak. I kept watching and watered it carefully in the past two weeks. At this point I do not declare it just "dead" like other samples. This is not a prognosis, but rather an illustration of a dead giant sequoia seedling that has not changed the needle color yet:

Notice the extreme thinness of the main trunk. Once that happens, it's all but gone.

Here is another dead seedling, seedling #15. It was declared a victim of the purple desease and pronounced dead. It underwent an extreme surgery at the time where its root was completely exposed and washed with plenty of water. After replanting into new soil (cactus soil), it sprang into vigorous growth resulting in this picture 4 months later:

#15 April 14, 2013. 5 months old.

First half of the "white patch"

Second half of the "white patch":

#38 no longer needs support and in general is becoming straighter. It is no longer number one by any stretch of imagination but is firmly in top five:

#38 April 14, 2013. 4 months and 2 weeks.

#39, the leader that was a top-two leader for 4-6 weeks is slowly loosing its ground to other seedlings, but remains exceptionally strong. Stronger seedlings appear to become straighter or just shoot straight up while adding volume. Still #39 is a highlight of the white patch:

#39 April 14, 2013. 4 months and 2 weeks.

Dealing with reality

My "30-year plan" of growing Giant Sequoias took a bit of a detour. The original plan was to grow seedlings in containers inside for 12-18 months and then plant them outside. For reasons outside of my control, I need to wait another 5-7 years.

Keeping seedlings inside for such a long time does not appear either easy for me or good for the plants. While I was wrestling with touch choices, I had an idea this morning, that perhaps I could plant them temporarily outside for a few years. The idea was inspired by the process that I just completed with moving plants from small diameter tubes into large tubes. Larger PVC tubes (6"x24") have sufficient volume to allow reasonable growth for at least 3 years and perhaps a bit more judging by the blogs and pictures I found on the Internet. They will not grow as well as the ones planted in the unlimited space, but I think it's a reasonable compromise for the situation at hands.

The bigger problem is not the growing soil volume but the exposure to the natural elements. I have a strong suspicion that if I keep GS indoors for 5 years they will have very tough time adjusting to the real conditions of Iowa weather patterns.

So, the idea that I came up with this morning was to keep 6" PVC pipes for 3-5 years outside. Once I am ready to move to the large(er) acreage I want to be able to take them with me. With this idea in mind I drew the following sketch:

I will dig a hole using a large auger about one foot in diameter and a bit over two feet deep, fill it to about 4" depth with large gravel, place the current 6" PVC tubes in the middle and fill the rest with more gravel. The idea is for the PVC pipe to stick a few inches above ground level so that when the time comes to move on, I would remove some gravel on the sides and pull the container with the trees out.

In order to acclimate young trees to the outside conditions I am planning on taking them outside a few hours at a time, probably in the Spring of 2014 and then planting them in the described fashion in the Fall once they have been exposed to the elements indefinitely. They would be 2 years old by that moment. I am planning on maintaining about 50% additional trees to the target of 20 through this described period. The strongest 20 will take a trip with me to the permanent place, where ever it may be.

Moving to new quarters

Total of 14 seedlings moved to the new homes. All are doing great. Most of the seedlings grow at a fast pace now with exception of about ten that "got stuck" in their development for some reason.

The process of moving is very simple - put some soil on the bottom of the larger container, then cut through the ductape of the old container, place old container inside the new one, pour some soil in the gap between the two and finally remove both halves of the old:

Here is a few samples in the new quarters. First is the tallest one, #72. For comparison, I placed a seedling, which is ready to get moved from its baby cup to a 3" wide container. This new seedling (if it's lucky to survive next 3-4 months), will be moved to the 6" wide container, hopefully looking something like #72:

#72 April 4, 2013. 4 months old.

One of my favorite ones is #36, which formed a pretty curve:

#36 April 7, 2013. 4 months and 3 weeks.