The winter took out most of the sequoias. Young and old. The larger ones that were showing promise in the spring ultimately did not recover. I removed all dead trees past weekend. The map will obviously need to be updated to reflect the new order.
The new order is, as I started describing in the last post, to build a fortification consisting of a dual windbreak lines of hardy conifer trees. Further hardening will be done through cluster planting of sequoia seedlings close to each other so that the trees closer to the middle would experience less windburn. Finally, the trees will be treated with polymer in the fashion described by Jacob from Kelly's tree farm.
Surviving ones include #207:
#220?
There are a few more that have some green growth at the bottom but all are minimal and pretty meaningless to measure at this time.
Both of the surviving trees were kept under the foam cones. However, foam protection is not the ultimate protection. All of the seedlings that were kept in the pots inside a foam protected box, all 120 of them, also perished. Wind burn and desiccation is one of the problems but root system freeze out is also deadly to sequoias. Red cedar that was kept in the same box with sequoias survived just fine.
Here is picture of the dead #33, which was the tallest tree after previous season:
And here is another strong tree from last year, #104, after it was cut down:
The pond near sequoia clusters continues to take shape. Recent rains are filling it up pretty quickly.
A shade area was set up with 25%, 40% and 50% light blocking fabric where younger sequoias will be kept through the summer. The cluster planting will happen in the fall, also under the protected structure, only for winter it will be an insulation fabric. The idea is to have insulation screen movable, so that the trees are exposed to snow and some wind but for the especially cold periods it would be moved over on top to cover the seedlings. The overarching goal is to continue training trees to Iowa winters but without killing them.
The new order is, as I started describing in the last post, to build a fortification consisting of a dual windbreak lines of hardy conifer trees. Further hardening will be done through cluster planting of sequoia seedlings close to each other so that the trees closer to the middle would experience less windburn. Finally, the trees will be treated with polymer in the fashion described by Jacob from Kelly's tree farm.
Surviving ones include #207:
#220?
Both of the surviving trees were kept under the foam cones. However, foam protection is not the ultimate protection. All of the seedlings that were kept in the pots inside a foam protected box, all 120 of them, also perished. Wind burn and desiccation is one of the problems but root system freeze out is also deadly to sequoias. Red cedar that was kept in the same box with sequoias survived just fine.
Here is picture of the dead #33, which was the tallest tree after previous season:
And here is another strong tree from last year, #104, after it was cut down:
The pond near sequoia clusters continues to take shape. Recent rains are filling it up pretty quickly.
A shade area was set up with 25%, 40% and 50% light blocking fabric where younger sequoias will be kept through the summer. The cluster planting will happen in the fall, also under the protected structure, only for winter it will be an insulation fabric. The idea is to have insulation screen movable, so that the trees are exposed to snow and some wind but for the especially cold periods it would be moved over on top to cover the seedlings. The overarching goal is to continue training trees to Iowa winters but without killing them.
