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.