It JUST got warm in Iowa.
It was still snowing last week here. The temps were oscillating around freezing point. There was not all that much rain but when it fell it was mixed with snow and sleet. There is nothing new to report about the sequoia trees from the park, since everything continues to be in a suspended state. With temperatures now moving into the low sixties it's destined to change.
With no sequoia activity it was a good time to start thinking about improving the site. Without any further delay, here is a new map, version 3. It's mostly to indicate the scope of work for the upcoming season.
This picture also shows sequoias planted in the ground (large red circles with black outline) with some hope of revival. If you remember the older maps, you will see that quite a few older sequoias are now gone.
The two major objectives for this summer is planting of the windbreaks and creating a water collection system. The windbreak is made of the the two barriers - one outside consisting of Norway spruce and White spruce; and an inner row of pines and arborvitaes. The water collection system is two-fold - ground drainage collection into a small pond and a pergola roof rain collector with a barrel of water.
In case of extra water from the roof, the spill will be diverted into the pond. The roof based collector is 8x8ft. With a 2 inch of rain it will collect about 80 gallons of water. The barrel that I got is 50 gallons, so it's highly likely spills will occur. The pond will also accumulate water flowing from the hill. A drainage trench will be dug where the water flows naturally. I marked the area of flowing water last fall during heavy rains. The area around the pond, protected behind two rows of wind breaking trees will hold the main "sequoia sanctuary". I also intend to protect young sequoias with aggressive winter measures, mainly applying sealing polymer and wrapping with thermal materials till the windbreakers grow taller and sequoias had a chance to create larger root system. The other two green sequoia areas will be the places for the experiments with limiting vertical growth by cutting the leads in the fall.
Last week I purchased a total of 60 trees for the wind breakers:
They had to wait till this week for the snow to melt and the ground to finally unfreeze. Today first windbreaker trees were planted:
It was still snowing last week here. The temps were oscillating around freezing point. There was not all that much rain but when it fell it was mixed with snow and sleet. There is nothing new to report about the sequoia trees from the park, since everything continues to be in a suspended state. With temperatures now moving into the low sixties it's destined to change.
With no sequoia activity it was a good time to start thinking about improving the site. Without any further delay, here is a new map, version 3. It's mostly to indicate the scope of work for the upcoming season.
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| Iowa Sequoia Map Version 3 |
The two major objectives for this summer is planting of the windbreaks and creating a water collection system. The windbreak is made of the the two barriers - one outside consisting of Norway spruce and White spruce; and an inner row of pines and arborvitaes. The water collection system is two-fold - ground drainage collection into a small pond and a pergola roof rain collector with a barrel of water.
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| Map version 3, zoomed |
Last week I purchased a total of 60 trees for the wind breakers:
They had to wait till this week for the snow to melt and the ground to finally unfreeze. Today first windbreaker trees were planted:
