Finally, after two months of vigorous activities the park is beginning to take shape. Most of the first wave sequoias have been moved to their permanent homes.
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| #31 during move on May 27, 2016. Extraction from plastic container. |
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| #31 during move on May 27, 2016. Filling with black dirt. |
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| #31 during move on May 27, 2016. Making a mound. |
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| #31 permanently planted. June 11, 2016 |
Almost all sequoias experienced some level of stress during the move. The biggest ones had the most drooping of the top branches and especially the leading shoots. One two year old sequoia experienced no visible signs of discomfort. It can be attributed to the fact that the three year olds had roots going outside of the 2-foot containers through the bottom and some even through the drainage holes on sides. The two year old had only very minor root sticking from the bottom. Since older ones had some roots broken upon removal from temporary holes they experienced shortage in water supply and dropped.
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| #63 stressed after the move. Lead shoot is bent pointing down in the middle of this picture. |
However, all sequoias so far bounced back within two weeks of being in the new homes.
The most troubled sample at this point is a former leader #34. It had a history of a very late start last Spring when it started to bud early and got hit with a freeze. It eventually started growing and remained in the top five for the year. This season looks worse than last. For an unknown reason it shows almost no signs of new growth. It's not dead yet with a substantial portion of the volume remaining dark green from previous years, but there are no visible changes this year so far. #34 still holds a respectable spot #7 in overall height due to its previous success but the future looks bleak. It was the only surviving sample that lost height over winter, currently standing just above 28".
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| #34 on June 11, 2016. Approaching 4 years. This sample is not growing this season. |
In addition to #34 troubles another two-year old, #217 got moved into the #0 (Dead) folder. It was struggling last year and was by far the smallest and weakest. There is only one remaining sample in that age range that remains questionable. #220 was accounted for dead for several weeks but an unexpected lead appeared in the last two weeks going from underneath dead looking ball of brown needles.
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| #220 on June 11, 2016. The weakest of two year olds. |
The remainder of two year olds are doing exceptionally well. One young tree more than doubled (!) between start of the season in April and now, early June. #219 grew 6.75", which represent 112% growth since last Fall. It went from 6" to 12.75".
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| #219 on June 11, 2016. Two and a half years. |
One two-year-old #214 grew an amazing 8.5" in the same period. It was a reasonably strong sample last season but in the first 8 weeks of this season it averaged a little over 1" per week. It currently stands at 21", getting in range of the middle of the pack of the three-year-old trees. Not far behind it is #212 that added 8" and stands at the same 21" of height.
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| #212 on June 11, 2016. Two and a half years old. |
From the absolute growth perspective, #38 is a clear winner. It added 9.5" standing above the rest at 38.5". It jumped four places to take the overall lead. #38 was permanently planted in May last Spring, so it had the luxury unavailable to any other trees till now. It was not doing exceptionally well last growing season, clearly getting adjusted to the new home. The dividends are paying now.
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| #38 on June 11, 2016. Permanently planted in May 2015. Current leader at three and a half years old, 38 inches. |
On average, most trees added about 5" of height. Five trees stand above 30" mark and the middle of the pack is between 20 and 28 inches.
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| Height chart on June 11, 2016 |
A new crop of late 2015 early 2016 sequoias is growing mostly in shade. There are total of 75 new contenders.
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| Approximately 75 new 2016 season sequoia seedlings. |
In addition to sequoias a few Norway Spruces, Ponderosa pines and Oriental spruces were planted around the park.
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| Norway Spruce June 11, 2016. About 3 years old. |
Finally, sequoias imported from California are not doing well. All nine are drooping their branches and color is changing more to yellow. These trees were not planted yet but rather moved into the woods. It is unclear what is causing them to stress like that.
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| California sequoias not doing well on June 11, 2016 |
I'm doing something similar, but your far ahead in terms of timeline.
ReplyDelete55 acres - WNY
1) sandy loam soil (drainage)
2) slight grade (drainage)
3) mycorrhizal amends in soil (root development)
4) groasis waterboxx (hydration)
drop me a line, twitter: Spectre2012
Hello, sorry just noticed your comment. Do you have a page where I could look at your progress?
DeleteDo you grow your trees from seed indoors or out. We have tried both with poor results each time. The outdoor grown ones do fine until heavy rains and then almost all died, even in draining containers: https://dewharvest.blogspot.com/2015/09/growing-giant-sequoia-trees-from-seed.html
ReplyDeleteAh! The nemesis of young sequoias is the early days. The "recipe" I found so far is to place newly germinated seeds in containers inside. I use grow lights and a gentle breeze of a large fan indirectly moving the air in the room. Based on many unsuccessful attempts, it looks like freshly cleaned containers (with soap), a few sprays of chlorothalonil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorothalonil, sold in Earl May) on a mix of peat moss with about 10% of medium size perlite. Consistency of a wet sponge. I also put a few small rocks at the bottom of the containers. Without the rocks peat moss/perlite continue to wash out of the container. I had some containers with more than half of the material washed out.
DeleteI do not water them from above! The drier the seed and the place where it connects with the white root, the better. Instead, I have a rectangular pan that is just deep enough that when I submerge the container the water goes to about 1 inch from the top. The idea here is to have the lower part of the root wet while leaving top part dry. I got this pan in a hardware store in the masonry department. Its original use is for making cement mixture. I used to use a small bucket for the same purpose but it was very tedious to do it with each individual container. Now I fill the pan with water and then submerge an entire tray with 98 containers for 5 minutes. Then I lift it up and let the excess water run off.
With this method I had minimal number of young sequoias dampening off. Still happens, but not as bad.
I also tried just drop a bunch of seeds in a large 15L container filled with the same mixture outdoors this summer. There were many germinations but 100% perished within a few days of germination. I went through over a 100 seeds like that.
When I had about 120 seedlings standing at 2-3 inches I took them outside in a moderate shade. I also did this gradually over a week (bringing in and out in early May). They were doing very well for the first few weeks. A lot of them got to about 4-5" but then a few different diseases started hitting them. It looked like the brown rust, purple tint and black dots were jumping from one to another very quickly. I kept removing the ones that died but probably not fast enough. As of today I have about 30-40 that are still viable. Just a couple look very healthy. One in particular was separated early on from the rest and placed into a large container. I moved it to the woods where I am planting permanently. There it grew to 7" tall and it also has a very good volume of side branches.
I would love to do this again, but realistically, I ran out of space on the 1 acre of clearing. It is extremely difficult to clear out the forrest here. If I knew what I would be facing I would not have started it this Spring.
I will add these notes to the recent post.
Do you allow visitors? I have always deeply loved sequoias and I live in SE Iowa.
ReplyDeleteSent PM. But the answer is YES!
DeleteYou go gurrl
ReplyDeleteCould you provide an update?
ReplyDeleteI would also like update
ReplyDelete