Happy New Year 2021

The new year has arrived with a foot of snow. It's a great news for the sequoias.

This is a very short update with temperature reporting over last two weeks. Temperatures stayed significantly above normal through Dec 23, well above freezing during the day, reaching +8C on that day. However, they dropped to negative 15-16 Celsius by Dec 25. The red line shows air temperature from the sensor above ground under the protective cone near one of the sequoias. 

Underground temperature shown in blue tells the story of a very gradual temperature slide from 5C to about 1.5C, still clearly positive and never going below water freezing point.

Once the underground sensor shows 0C or below, I intend to conduct an experiment with the heating wire installed at 1 foot depth. It will happen probably in two-three days from now as the air temp will remain below freezing for the most part.

Christmas expansion

The project grew a bit larger this Christmas season.

How much larger? Here are two pictures for scale. One is a top down view of the current area of operations. The second is a zoomed out area with the first area inset for comparison. 

New total area outlined in red is now a bit over 12 acres, which is approximately 5 hectares. Magenta rectangle shows relative size of the sequoia patch within the larger area. 

The vast majority of the new land depicted with darker green is rough forested terrain. Several large hills are separated by deep creeks. 

The work to clear out space for the trails and new locations for sequoias will begin in the spring. There is also a plan to build a solar farm to supply the sequoia hill operations with energy.

In other news, Bitcoin hit an All Time High (ATH). 

Mid-December update on temperature data and walk-through video

 Two sensors have been collecting data for a bit over two weeks. 

It is quite remarkable how little the temperature underground changes. Now that we are in mid-December the temperature at one foot ground depth (blue line) have steadily dropped from about 6-6.5C to 4.5-5C. This winter was mild so far as can be observed by the above ground (red line) temperature staying well above freezing from noon through early evenings most days. 

So far there is no concern what so ever about tree roots access to liquid water. 

The next interesting step is 3 inches of snow that covered the ground today. The air temperatures are expected to stay below freezing next few days.

Video walk-through the park

End of 2020 Iowa giant sequoia growing season and winter preparation

Another growing season is over. It was a successful one. Despite the drought and a massive wind storm that literally changed the landscape for hundreds of miles, this little experiment lives on.

As reported earlier in September, there was practically no fungus attacks this season. It was probably due to a generally drier than normal summer but also probably because of the consistent application of an anti-fungal agent, chlorothalonil. Healthy green and blue-green looking trees are going for their winter hibernation phase. After trying several winter protection strategies in the previous years, this year I decided to try a different approach with some extreme winterization experiments. 

During the upcoming winter I decided to tackle two major variables  - water evaporation through the needles and root access to liquid water. For the former, I sprayed the foliage with anti-desiccant polymer and then wrapped the trees in some frost cover fabric, which is very light unwoven material. I used 3/8 inch rebar that is used in cement work to create pyramidal frames around single and groups of sequoia seedlings. It's an extremely cheap and simple way to construct a structure around trees. 10ft long rebar costs about $3.50 a piece. Sticking rebar in the ground and tying three or more ends with a zip-tie takes only a minute creating an improvised teepee. After the trees are wrapped in fabric and teepee frame is constructed, then I used a roll of wide packing plastic to create a winter/moisture barrier by wrapping it around the metal frame. 

I made sure to leave a hole on the top of the teepees that would allow extra moisture to escape the housing. There are some variables in the set up as I used more or less wrapping material and bigger and smaller holes on the top to control amount of evaporation. 

After the teepees were constructed I watered all sequoias with generous amount of water and buried the area around the pyramids with 6-8 inches of mulch.

Which brings us to the next topic of root water access. 

It is clear that sequoias are greatly affected by the loss of moisture during cold Iowa winters. In general, it is stated that this area in Iowa has 3 to 4 feet deep frost line for the purposes of house and other structure construction. In my own experiments I find that it's actually closer to 2 feet, but I can certainly see how it can get deeper during extremely cold winters. Once the ground is frozen solid there is little that sequoia roots can do to replenish lost needle water. Some trees adapted to these conditions and remarkably many local conifers can survive a total root freeze, but realistically, not every seedling of even the hardiest of them all - eastern red cedar - survives such conditions. I had dozens of red cedar seedlings perished during winter. Needless to say, sequoias are not as hardy as red cedar. Controlling the way how the roots fare during  winter would be an interesting endeavor. 

The idea is that as the trees get older and develop their root system, enough of the roots would penetrate the frost line, providing the tree with water during cold winter months. The feeder roots of sequoia are located very close to the surface, which creates a clear problem for growing sequoias in such a harsh climate. The challenge is to create ground conditions that would allow for some liquid water to be available to the trees. One most direct way is to cover ground with a thick layer of mulch. However, in some previous years I did have some trees with 6-8 inches of mulch and they still did not survive. The difference this year is that I am applying both thick mulch layer and adding a moisture barrier for the needles. My hope is that the combination of both would allow survival. 

But wait, there is more.

How do I actually know if there is liquid water available to the roots? Fortunately, there are wireless sensors available these days. I did not find any examples of people using some underground sensors for gardening or tree-growing over winter. I did find out that there are sensors that are used in food freezers, which indicates that they will probably work if placed in the cold soil. I purchased one such sensor called "SensorPush"

I have been testing it for a couple of weeks and so far it seems to perform well. The basic concept of the experiment is very simple - place a sensor at the level of the feeder roots and see if temperature is anywhere close to the water melting point. I dug a hole about 6 inches deep next to one of the sequoias and placed there a SensorPush, which I put in three enclosed plastic bags to prevent exposing it to open water. Filled the hole with soil on top of the sensor.

I added another 8 inches of mulch on top of the filled hole and marked location of the sensor with an old arrow.

Next step was a familiar teepee with wrapping of the needles in fabric and plastic around the frame. And another 6 inch of mulch on top and around the base of the pyramid:

Here are the results of the first two weeks of sensor measurements:

It is worth mentioning that the lowest temperature so far was the night from Nov 22 to Nov 23, 20F. There was a delay of almost 24 hours for the ground temperature to reach its lowest value of 45.3F during the night of Nov 24. The 25 degree difference is substantial. It is clear that the ground gives off immense amount of heat at this time. How this will continue during the winter months will be interesting to observe.

But that's not all. To push the experiment even further I added a controlled variable in the way of an underground heating wire. The SensorPush sensor is actually lying on top of a section of this wire. The wire is a 6 foot long loop that goes around this sequoia seedling at the depth of 6 inches. If and when the temperature drops below freezing I intend to conduct some power injections to see the effect on the soil temperature. Depending on the outcome of these experiments, it would not be too difficult to install underground wires for other trees, but the time will tell if this is needed or if it's effective.

Iowa Derecho

Last month we all learned a new word here in Iowa. Derecho. 

Frankly, I have not heard that word before though I have lived in the area over a quarter of a century. I have heard many natives saying the same thing. It’s definitely an extremely rare phenomenon that I hope will not happen again for the next few hundred or thousand years over the sequoia hill. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2020_Midwest_derecho

As it happened, my sequoia experiment was about 7-10 miles from the epicenter of the derecho. While the worst of the damage came from the winds above 120 mph (200 km/h) our area was mostly greeted with roughly 100 mph (160 km/h) straight wind. The epicenter or I guess, “epiline”, of the storm removed over half of all trees, we have lost probably around a quarter. The most affected trees in our area were those in 40-80 year old range. The oldest and largest trees over 100 years old withstood the wind with some large branches lost. My neighbor’s tree is a 100+ ft (30+ m) extremely thick (about 5ft/1.5m diameter) oak that had surprisingly little damage. Younger 2-15 year old trees were able to bend, sometimes nearly to the ground and survive because of that. One tree on my land got bent and stuck:

Anything in between 15 and 40 year old was a coin toss. I have about a dozen 50-80 year old oaks, hickories and elms  all around 80-100ft (~30m) tall. Only one such oak was completely destroyed snapping clean about half way along the trunk  and losing the entire crown. 

All trees lost some branches including massive major ones but overall we got “lucky” compared to the unbelievable scenes just down the road from us. Many areas have no intact trees above 20-30ft tall left, some completely torn out of the ground with immense root balls sticking up to the house roofs and some sheered off with mangled splintered trunks sticking out of the soil.

Amazingly, no losses to the sequoias or any other seedlings on my tree farm. Several cages were mangled by downed smaller trees and flying giant branches but after digging the seedlings from under the debris there was no significant damage to speak of to the trees themselves. 

One young spruce was removed from the ground along with its rootball by a branch that was dragged along its location but I stuck it back into the hole and it may still survive. Most potential damage is to the sequoia and other seedlings root balls as the trees were pressed against the ground practically 90 degrees from their normal orientation and then repeated many times over the 15-20 minute period of the storm. That action wiggled some of them out of the soil. I pressed them back into the ground and filled in a bit with some dirt and small leaves and debris that thickly covered the entire area. Now almost a month after the event I do not see any negative effects although I thought such a disturbance to the root system can’t be good to their wellbeing. But I have to say that the growth since the derecho continued unabated with some sequoias posting most excellent progress. This statement applies to the sequoias of all ages and varieties, regular green and the hardy blue ones. 

Another fairly unusual phenomenon in progress is a severe drought that’s going on in the area. The humidity levels were consistently much lower than normal. High humidity in late summer is associated with fungus growth on sequoias. Not this year. There are no visible signs of the fungus except a couple of suspected small spots. Not to give fungi any chance all sequoias were treated with chlorothalonil three times since the start of the season, last time yesterday. Most of the trees look very healthy.

This is not to say that there were no casualties this summer. Several sequoias, both from the last fall and this spring planting, perished for one reason or another. These reasons are not entirely understood as some just started turning brown, some turning yellow and almost white, some just desiccating and turning thinner till complete death. A few had a malformed growth on the top where needles start bending and thickening making them look like an ugly light green flower preventing the lead to continue upward growth. 

Some have died but some have overcame that condition and a new side branch was able to grow through this and start a new lead. A couple are still recovering from that condition. 

The year old and this year germinated seedlings in containers are doing reasonably well as well. The biggest problem with them is desiccation due to lack of rain and the high temperatures. I failed to water them in time several times and lost a few because of that as containers got very light. 

Speaking about watering, I have watered a few sequoias with very generous amount of water through the entire season. I could not do it to all sequoias but to one selected patch that was closest to the water faucet. Surprisingly two younger sequoias on that patch died but the rest grew extremely well. One in particular, of a green variety, is the healthiest sequoia with great shape that I have ever seen in my experiments or elsewhere in the natural habitat. It’s definitely the largest sequoia by volume at present, though not the tallest. Several hardy blue varieties are taller due to a healthy growth this season, but none look as full as this green one. 

Quick update on color

Here is a picture showing two varieties of sequoia side by side. 

The two on the left are standard sequoiadendron from seeds. The one on the right is “exceptionally blue” clone from Crowfoot Nursery. The difference in color is pretty striking. 

2020 growing season begins

It has been a long time since the last update. This past winter has not been nearly as bad as the previous one but several sequoias still perished.

The two largest and oldest sequoias suffered opposite fates. One emerged unscathed nice and green with a bunch of new growth as of May 23 while the other one is completely dead.

Previous leader #222 is completely dead with no signs of new green well into June:

This past winter it was surrounded by a foam cylinder but without the top. The idea was to protect it against the direct wind and allow snow and rain to go directly on the tree. Did not work. 

The second leader #220 faired much better but it was heavily protected by Lutrasil fabric layer and by a complete foam cone

#220 is about 20 inches tall with vigorous new green growth throughout the entire volume.

There are four more sequoias that spent second winter planted in the ground, but they have been severely underdeveloped over last two years. One reached the height of over 40 inches at one point but was completely destroyed and started re-growing from practically zero height. This winter it as once again seriously damaged but a few new green shoots appeared in the late spring:

Two very small sequoias from 2016 are still alive but do not exceed 4 inches:

One of the 2016 germinations trees was doing moderately well but the growth has never kicked in like most normally developing trees. #267 stands at about  10 inches tall:

This wraps ups all the sequoia trees that were germinated here in Iowa and spent the last winter planted in ground. 

Three hardy hybrids from Crowfoot Nursery in Oregon were planted in the ground and all were protected by foam. Two of them were Hazel Smith and one was Glaucum. All three survived with varying degree of success. 

The worst is a Hazel Smith that was kept under one very large foam covering along with two other sequoias - Glaucum hybrid and a regular germinated sequoia. The regular one died. The Glaucum one is doing well.

HS in bad shape but there is one good new shoot:

Glaucum is not big but has plenty of new green growth:

The remaining hardy hybrid was planted in a different location and is doing fine. It was one of the smaller HS but surprisingly it did well:

Another patch of sequoias was planted together consisting of only purchased sequoias from a different nursery in Oregon. They were not hardy hybrids but rather normal green giant sequoias. They were all kept under a layer of Lutrasil and a foam cone above. Out of four planted three survived with minimal damage and one died. all survivors look approximately the same:

This wraps up the list of the sequoias that spent the last winter outside in the ground.

This spring the rest of the sequoias were planted in the ground except the seedling germinated in the Fall of 2019 and some 2018.

Here is an example of a HS sequoia planted in this recent batch:

In total there are:

In ground Hardy Hybrids (Hazel Smith, Exceptionally Blue and Glaucum) - 21

In ground Germinated in Iowa regular 2014-2018 - 8

In ground Oregon regular 2016 - 7

Seedlings 2018 in pots - 6

Seedlings 2019 in pots - 33

2019 end of growing season

2019 growing season is quickly wrapping up. There are no tall sequoias anywhere on the tree farm. Here is an account of all sequoias that are growing.

There are several categories of sequoias, for a total of 64 living seedlings:

1. Original experiment, grown from J.L. Hudson seeds in 2013-2016, 200 and 400 series. Qty: 6
2. Seedlings purchased in March and October 2018 (2016 germinations). Scenic Hill Farm nursery in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Qty: 11 (out of 30  purchased)
3. 2018 germinations 500 series. Qty: 28
4. Cold hardy sequoia seedlings purchased in December 2018 from Crowfoot nursery in Oregon,  All grafted. Qty: 19
1. Exceptionally Blue - 1
2. Hazel Smith - 15
3. Glaucum - 3

All six 200-400 series and three out of Scenic Hill sequoias are planted in ground and all others are in pots.

The 200 series recovered well from the last winter:

220 Fall 2019, about 2 feet tall

As you may recall, there was little left of it at the beginning of this growing season:

220 Spring 2019

Similar situation with 222:

222 Fall 2019, about 2 feet tall

214 did not fare as well as the others but it does not appear to be in immediate danger of dying.
207 that was still the most promising tree as of the end of 2018 did not survive the winter.

400 series from 2016 germinations are barely growing. The two remaining survivors stand at about 5 inches:

400, 2016 germination, 5"

Scenic Hill sequoias had a significant mortality rate after last brutal winter. Out of about a dozen sequoias planted in the ground last Fall and all being kept under foam protectors, only 4 survived well into the middle of the summer. One sequoias unexpectedly died in early September with no usual signs of fungus. It just started turning yellow-grayish color as if from the lack of (or excessive) moisture and finally withered away. The three remaining sequoias look about the same:

Scenic Hill OR sequoia planted in ground in Fall 2018, 18". It is one of three planted in ground

Here  is the Scenic Hill sequoias in  pots:

Scenic Hill sequoias, 2016 germinations

2018 germinations:

Cold hardy sequoias look as follows:

Exceptionally Blue graft, 2018

Hazel Smith grafts, 2018

Hazel Smith, 2018

Glaucum, 2018

Most of the potted sequoias are going to spend next winter indoors. Just a handful of new sequoias will be going in the ground in November time frame and all will be protected with thermal foam.

Answering some questions

AnonymousJuly 22, 2019 at 9:20 PM

I live in zone 6, so I suppose a lot of your findings might not translate. Specifically, I was curious about:

1) Do you stratify at room temperature on a damp coffee filter with distilled water?

2) After roots appear, what is the soil composition you transfer the seeds to, how much sunlight do the germinated seeds receive, and how much water do they receive/how often are they watered? Do you use fungicide or fertilizer?

3) Is there a maximum amount of time the plants can remain indoors? I have a grow light, and would like to keep them out of the cold for as long as possible. I know you had concerns about the plants becoming accustomed to the warmth.

4) Once planted outside, do you still regularly water the trees?

I know that’s a lot of questions, but I’d really like to get this right, and you’re probably the most knowledgeable person on this topic. Anything would help. Thanks again!

Here is what I am thinking:

Zone  6 is a little better but I still think you will have a hard  time keeping them  alive.  Worth  trying  regardless.

1. Stratification is not  needed. The seeds  are  cheap enough. For $40 I got one  ounce, which  is  approximately 6,000  seeds. Even if you do a batch  of 100 seeds at a  time, you  will  end up  with  enough germinations that  will keep you occupied for the whole season. I did  400 at one time and  ended  up with 150 germinations. What  you do not  appreciate at the beginning  of  the journey is how much time is required to take proper  care of  just 20-30 seedlings. 100 unstratified seeds should give you between 10 and 40 germinations. I germinate on  a coffee filter with regular tap water. I normally spray it with Dakonil, which kills any potential fungi. Typically you get first germinations after 10-15 days and then they keep popping up for about a month.

2. I use pure peat moss with about 1/5th of perlite by volume as starter medium. Make sure to mix it with water so that it's very damp like a wet sponge. Seeds do not require any sun to germinate but after they have germinated the more light the better. I use fluorescent lamps, both 2 ft and 4ft version with 6 lamps in each. Try to keep the light about 6-8 inches from the tops as it really helps with the  growth. My last couple of batches I kept lamps about 12 inches away and they still did okay. With 12 inches away it's much easier to water without moving the lights. If you decide to keep lights close be careful not to overheat. I used to have a small fan blowing atop the seedlings removing any potential hot air build up. Water once a week. I have a measuring flask, each seedling would get about 50ml. That seems about right for a week for my humidity and temperatures. Do not worry too much about exact water amount. As long as the containers dont get too light, they should be okay. I read that too much water may cause negative effects but in practice did not notice that when I over watered. I do use fungicide. It is in my experience #1 remedy for healthy young seedlings. Aforementioned Dakonil (chlorotholanil active compound) is the miracle drug for sequoias. I lost countless hundreds of sequoias before I started applying Dakonil. They do not need it often but once about every 6-8 weeks a spray of Dakonil keeps troubles away. I do not use any fertilizer, although I did an experiment with an unlikely "fertilizer" - magnesium sulfate, about 2% solution - with seemingly great results. It's hard to say if that was really the effect of that magnesium salt or just LOOKED better to me. The reason why I decided to add magnesium was because since I used just peat moss I was thinking that would really have practically no nutrients. Where would Mg2+ would come from to form the chlorophyl for the green needles? Obviously some is available in tap water, but I thought jump starting it with an extra shot of Mg2+ would not hurt. And it did not. I apply that solution every 4-6 weeks instead of watering with tap water.

3. I do not think there is any limit on how long you would want to keep them inside during winter. Eventually you will have no choice. They grow. They really really like sun (with plenty of watering) during summer, but if you have space indoors to keep them then by all means, do it. By year 3 some of my sequoias got to 3-4 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide. It's okay to keep a few of them inside but it becomes impractical for anything more than 10 unless you have some large indoor space for some reason. I no longer think that keeping them inside is bad for long term survivability. However, once they go outside, you would have to protect them till they get firmly established. This means, I am guessing now 5-7 years outdoors. Developing root system is the most critical part of the process. If you have means of planting 2-3 year sequoias outside and keep them protected over next 5-7 winters then I think that is the most real chance to establish them.

4. No, I do not regularly water them when planted outside. All trees that got planted outside never showed signs of being water stressed. The two nightmares are fungi and winter desiccation. When it is really hot and dry then yes, I do put some water around them, just in case, but as I said, I never observed water related problems. One time I had moved a very large seedling (4 feet tall) from a container into the ground. Because it was so large and heavy (mostly because I did not want  to damage the root ball with a lot of soil) that it took me several hours  of moving stuff around. The top of the tree drooped severely and most branches drooped as  well. After I  placed  the tree in the ground I  watered it thoroughly and by the next  morning it was back to its normal self. Never had that problem again with that tree (till it died from a severe fungus attack).

Other tips - spray early in the spring with Dakonil. Then repeat in the middle of summer and again in the early fall. Fungus starts to develop and then quickly takes over  trees in late August-September.

Now more of a speculation, since I have not really attempted that yet, it will be required to protect them for many years from the winter cold before the roots develop wide and deep enough to pump enough water. I have now build a large foam cone, stealing the idea from the so called "rose protectors". Stealing, in the sense that I just re-used the idea of an octagonal pyramid made out of styrofoam, only larger. I built an experimental 8 foot tall protecting cone for the next winter, will see how the sequoias fare under that. If the cone itself survives that is. We have severe winds here in Iowa during winter that may exceed 50 MPH. And they can be blowing for days with temperatures deep into the negatives. Longer term solution for me is that I am now growing several barrier walls of hardy conifers around the future sequoia site with the idea of breaking up the severe winter winds. Even with that, I think I will need to keep wrapping large sequoias into some protective layers for years to come.

Good luck and share your pictures.

2019 season opening

Say what? Season opening in June? Yes, this update has little to do with typical measuring of the growth and beautiful pictures of giant sequoias. Instead, it’s the next chapter in the mighty war of sequoias in Zone 5.

There were total of about 20 GS outside for the past winter. Two normal trees, about 2-3ft tall, two bush-like survivors from previous winters and the rest all very small seedlings up to 8-9 inches tall. All seedlings and the two “bushes” were kept under styrofoam thermal cones. The two real trees had a burlap layer outside of the wire fence and another layer of highly reflective plastic. There was a decent amount snow this past winter with about 2/3rd of the tree height covered by it by the middle of the winter.

This winter was exceptionally cold and long. Temperatures dipped to -30F (-34C). With the windchill temperatures were reported to be below -50F (-45C). Average minimal temperature for January 2019 was an incredible -20F (-29C). This means not only that it got extremely cold several times, it stayed cold all January.

It got a little better in February but It was still -20C several times and then in March it got to -22C yet again. Majority of April was below freezing. Apple and cherry trees bloomed three weeks later than usual. This winter was hell for people and sequoias alike.

One of the older trees completely died:

By middle May there were no traces of green.

The second and largest tree did not die completely but it was severely decimated except for a few branches at the very bottom:

#220 after 2019 winter

Number 220 will most likely become another bush-like sequoia.

All "giant sequoias bushes" that were  covered with styrofoam survived without any visible problems. They are beginning to produce new shoots that perhaps will lead to the new leads. However, they all look like more or less like #220 above.

Several Hazel Smiths that were purchased in December 2018 are sitting in pots:

An experiment I would like to conduct for next winter is to build a large styrofoam cone that would cover larger trees.