Giant Sequoia Trees

One of the fun sub-projects of the log home project has been to plant and nurture a grove of Giant Sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) on the property. The seedlings were donated by Dan Cress and they were planted by Paul with his less-than-green thumbs. As a result of improper transplanting skill, only 12 trees of the original 29 trees have survived as of 2009. But if most of those 12 trees survive to maturity, it will still make for an impressive grove of trees. They will tower over all the rest of the trees in the area, some of which are pretty big in their own right. Many of the details of the first few years of this sub-project can be found in the journal by clicking on the dates of the following outline:

5/2/06 17 seedlings were planted along the northern boundary of the property.

5/3/06 3 seedlings were planted just above the drainfield

5/9/06 All 20 trees were watered

5/10/06 The 9 remaining trees were buried in their pots near the trailer

5/16/06 All 29 trees were watered

9/7/06 The trees were checked; only 16 of the 20 were found. 3 were dead and 13 were alive

10/31/07 Only 8 of the 20 survived the first winter and only 3 of the 9 potted trees survived

11/1/07 The 3 potted trees were transplanted making a total of 11

4/30/08 An early spring check found 5 of the 11

5/13/08 All 11 were found alive after the second winter. Mesh sleeves were installed

6/17/08 9 of the 11 were found healthy. Thick underbrush makes them very hard to find.

10/8/08 The sleeve from the tree later named "Andrew" was mysteriously moved

11/24/08 A sort-of-accessible trail to the trees was finally made by chainsawing through the logs and vine maples.

11/25/08 All 11 trees were systematically ID'd and tagged

4/21/09 All 11 trees made it through another winter. Their sleeves were straightened up and the trees were all measured. The heights and bushiness were recorded in a chart.

5/3/09 Ellen found one more tree in our yard in Seattle that somehow had gotten overlooked. It was still in its pot and was thriving.

5/5/09 The 12th tree was transplanted and all 12 trees were named starting at the top of the hill above the springbox. As it turned out, the 12th (and bushiest) tree got the name "Dan".

5/15/09 Copper name tags were made for the 12 trees

5/19/09 Signs were made for the trees by riveting the copper name tags to five-foot lengths of 5/8" rebar. The idea was to have a 3-way longevity contest between the signs, the trees, and their namesakes. Let's hope it takes a century or more to figure out the winners and losers.

5/20/09 The signs were planted in front of each tree and the following pictures were taken. In the interest of being able to see the trees themselves, the signs were cropped from the tops of the pictures. (You can see a picture of the copper name tags here.)

6/2/09 I made a video tour showing the 12 trees and their name signs.

7/24/09 John, Harold, Bill, Cam, Dave, and I visited the trees and some of the guys watered theirs.

4/21/10 I measured and recorded in a chart, the heights and bushiness of all 12 trees.

4/20/11 I measured and recorded in a chart, the heights and bushiness of all 12 trees.

7/14/11 Sadly, I found that Chuck had not survived. The poor little thing gave it a valiant effort but it was no use.

2/28/12 I bought a new Giant Sequoia to replace Chuck. I bought it from Molbak's nursery in Woodinville and got some excellent advice on how to transplant it from Joannie at Molbak's. I sure hope the advice works. I decided to plant the tree somewhere on the hillside where it would overhang the concrete staircase. I chose a site that will allow plenty of room for the tree to grow but when it is mature, its branches will still overhang the staircase. The tree will be visible from a dining room window in the cabin. Since there was about a foot of snow on that site, I dug a shallow hole and just placed the pot with the tree still in it into the hole. I'll transplant it later when there is less snow on the ground. Joannie said it would be OK to wait because the tree is dormant now.

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