Winter activities

With the outside sequoias dormant for the next few months it is time to focus on in-door activities. Before that, a short update on current winter conditions. After a few inches of snow and temperature dipping into teens Fahrenheit, the weather bounced up to above freezing. It has been steady about 27-32 at night and 40-50 during the day for close to two weeks now. The forecast calls for 38-55F next week. This is quite warm for second week of December. In general this is what I found about longer term outlook for USA this winter:

Dec-Feb 2015-16 Outlook.

If this pattern holds then sequoias outside should feel quite comfortable.

With sun getting lower and lower every day, here is a flurry of activities inside:

Sequoia nursery Dec 2015

The picture above shows diversification of the species in my basement. Most of the seedlings live in unprotected containers while very young sequoias that undergo germination in small plastic containers are kept inside a cage impervious to mice.

From left to right in the room:

Norway Spruce, Blue spruce and one Doug-fir. Dec 2015

Norway Spruce, Blue spruce and one Doug-fir: all seedlings are about 2 months old. Doug-fir is by far the biggest species at the similar age.

Thuia plicata, Meyer's spruce, Fraser Fir, Bold Cypress, Giant Sequoia and Ponderosa Pine. Dec 2015

A great variety of species in these four-gallon containers. The Thuia plicata sample was brought from the Olympic National Park trip last August. It grew substantially since then. Bold Cypress is from my neighbor Richard Horak who gave them to me after his two 30 year old trees seeded them without human help last Spring. I keep one under the lights and 5 more are in cold storage in the garage. The sequoia on this patch is from the 200-range seedling from the Fall of 2013, making it two year old about now. It is apparently one of the less successful ones from that crop but it remains in good health. Ponderosa Pine that arrived via mail did not fare well. Out of 9 samples only 3 are currently surviving. This is one of them. I built a small chicken-wire cage to keep it somewhat straight. All samples of both Fraser Fir and Meyer's spruce received from the same source as Ponderosa are doing fine. Two of each were planted in these 4-gallon containers.

Fraser Fir, Meyer's Spruce and Ponderosa Pine. Dec 2015

These are more of the same, showing some surviving Ponderosa and a few ones on the way out. Fraser Fir in these quart size containers are doing very well with a bright green bunches of needles appearing in the last 3-4 weeks. Meyer's spruce so far is showing no signs of getting worse but at the same time very little is happening. Only perhaps on two I can see some new needles growing on the top but nowhere nearly in the same spectacular fashion as Fraser is doing.

Giant sequoia, Meyer's Spruce, Sitka Spruce and Norway Spruce. Dec 2015

These are 10 mail ordered sequoias, 2-3 surviving Sitka and one random Norway Spruce (will consolidate later). All sequoias are doing fine with no signs of change since the order in August 2015. No change is great in my mind. They need to survive till next Spring.

Blue Spruce. Dec 2015

Here is the remainder of Blue Spruce. For some reason all Blue Spruce seedlings appear deformed. Their stems are all crooked and near the ground. I was going to call them dead for many weeks but they remain to grow albeit in this strange form.

Giant sequoia, White Pine, Western Hemlock and Doug-fir. Dec 2015

This is the main germination pool hiding inside mice resistant cage. About 80 six-inch containers started with 3 seeds each. 13 green seedlings are from the older patch that was devastated by a mouse. The rest were re-seeded three weeks ago. Surprisingly few (3) have germinated so far and those that did do not appear to have bright purple loop characteristic for healthy seedlings. They look pale brown and have not managed to come close to shedding the casings.

One (of 100) surviving Western Hemlock is still doing okay but not spectacular. Three White Pines also managed to survive. For one reason or another white pine has failed to establish so far. Finally, Doug-fir after long hibernation started to make significant gains. Some samples exhibit similar condition to what I described above about Blue Spruce with crooked stems but four, including three in this picture have taken off. From the original expansion program started in August, these are the tallest species.

Norway Spruce, Pacific Silver Fir (Abies amabilis), Subalpine Fir (Abies Lasiocarpa) and Western Hemlock.

A few more Norway spruce seedlings, all doing poorly but at least not dead yet. Stems remain thin, needles are dark green and also somewhat thin.

Finally, three sets of newly planted seeds for germination. All these were kept in a fridge at 0C for 3 months. Silver fir fared worst of all species with zero surviving out of 100. Western Hemlock did also poorly with only one surviving out of 100. This is another try with about 20 seeds, 3 per container. For Subalpine Fir this is its first try.