Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

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Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:49 pm

I was recently given this:

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It's a kit for growing a giant sequoia from seed. Which I think is rather awesome even though I don't have any idea what I'll do with it after a couple of years. It will grow in containers at first but sooner or later it'll need planting outside, and the eventual size of the tree, it'll need planting in a rather large open space.

I might be advertising for a forever home for it eventually if it starts growing to a hard-to-transport size and I still don't have anywhere to put it. Is there anyone, preferably in the UK, who has a field or large garden that could use a really big tree? But I suppose I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Here's what you get in the kit:

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A container that the kit terms a 'mini-greenhouse', a bag of soil, some white pebbles, instructions, and six tiny seeds.

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It's a matter of note that sequoias and redwoods, the biggest trees there are, grow from the smallest seeds of any trees.

Now to assemble the kit. First I fill the container with soil, and water it, according to the instructions, until it's thoroughly saturated. A good time to notice that the container, like all good plant pots, has holes in the bottom to let out excess water, would have been just before this step rather than just after. Oh well.

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Now for the important part: I snip open the little packet of seeds and, as directed, tip them all into the middle of the container, just on top of the soil.

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The kit notes that sowing several seeds gives a better change of one of them germinating. I just hope that I don't end up with more then one, as there certainly won't be room for two seedlings to grow in there and it would be rather sad to watch one smother its sibling.

Next I pour the pebbles (which are gravel and grit, really) over the top of the seeds.

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Now, it goes in the fridge to chill.

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Apparently, this will simulate winter for the seeds, and when they're taken out again they will think it's spring (actually it is spring but they don't really know that as they've been kept in the warm through the winter). This will cause them to germinate, hopefully. They have to stay in the fridge for twenty days, which since I planted them yesterday means they're due out on Easter Sunday. As it happens, I shall be away Easter weekend so they'll have to hang on an extra day.

I shall post an update on 6 April.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby Australia » Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:23 am

Curse you, magic beans!
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby Matthew Notch » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:33 am

No worries about getting more than one tree, my dear. If by some chance two or more do sprout, they'll likely cannibalize each other until only the strongest plant survives. My wife sows multiple seeds in multiple pots when she's starting her garden. And yes, she does winterize some varieties as well.

I wish you all the best! Growing a tree is ambitious. I hope it works out.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:06 am

Thanks Notch.

I actually read through the next bit of the instructions and it says you should be able to move the smaller siblings to another container if more than one sprouts - though goodness knows, working out what to do with one giant sequoia is going to be hard enough.

I've grown an apple tree from seed before, when I noticed some of the pips in an apple I'd been eating were sprouting. It got to the recognisably a tiny tree stage, though it didn't seem to do too well after that. I entrusted it to my parents a few years ago, and I haven't checked on it for a while. I know it's never grown apples, and if it ever does they'll be nothing like the kind of apple it was grown from, because of how apples' genetics work.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:56 pm

So much for updating when I took it out of the fridge. I took it out as scheduled and it's been on my windowsill for a little under three weeks.

The instructions said it would germinate some time between 15 and 45 days after taking it out, which is any time from last Tuesday to three weeks next Thursday. I first saw a seedling on Wednesday, but I think it was at least two days old by then, precocious little beggar. Yesterday a second one started to poke its head up, and there's still plenty of time to see if any others germinate.

I shall have to get a pot to transfer one into - that'll be a fiddly job, and I'm dreading it. I'm also a bit unsure which one to move. I should leave the strongest and most well-established, which is the older one, because I don't want to risk damaging it. But the older one is right by the edge of the container, which I'm worried will make it grow awkwardly as it gets a little bigger, whereas the second is right in the middle, and also will be in the middle of any other seeds that might be germinating. I think I'll leave it a few days and see how they both do.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby DangerChocomog » Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:40 pm

Oooh. I've got a pretty big garden which somehow is abundant with plant life, despite being in the middle of Birmingham.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Sat Apr 25, 2015 9:58 pm

Do you have a sunny spot at least 12 feet from any buildings, power lines, or other trees? The instruction leaflet says that's the minimum space. It seems awfully small to me, for a tree that could end up so big.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Apr 25, 2015 11:03 pm

I bought the same thing as a present for my parents like... a year ago. If the thing isn't dead yet I should make them plant it soon.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sun Apr 26, 2015 1:56 am

Mrs. Crabapple? I ate my seeds.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Tue May 12, 2015 8:40 pm

Well, sad update.

I transplanted the first seedling, the one that was growing at the edge of the container. It weathered the move and was doing fine in its new pot, but I'd realised when I moved the gravel in the container to get at it that the reason it was at the edge was because it had grown sideways under the stones until it found an opening, and I tried to get it to grow straighter.

I evidently wasn't gentle enough and it's in rather a bad way now. There's still a chance it might pull through, but it's not looking good.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Sun May 17, 2015 3:50 pm

It's dead. The other one is still healthy.
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:50 am

Well, it's been a while since I had an update.

The surviving seedling stopped growing for nearly a year. I was convinced I was caring for it wrong but nothing I could try seemed to help. I almost gave up on it. But these last couple of weeks it's definitely grown, and it's even developed two little clusters of leaves that unless I'm very much mistaken are the beginnings of its very first branches!

Maybe I planted it too late and it needed another Spring to come round to start growing again?
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby CarrieVS » Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:24 pm

By special request, here's a picture of the little feller:

sequoia_20160415.JPG
sequoia_20160415.JPG (42.56 KiB) Viewed 12122 times
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby Arkyle » Wed May 25, 2016 10:46 am

Little - for now... dun dun DUUUUUNNNNNNN...
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Re: Growing a Giant Sequoia in England

Postby cmsellers » Wed May 25, 2016 3:25 pm

I just have to say that if I lived in England and had a yard I would be trying to grow Fitzroya and Huon Pine too. They don't grow quite as tall (the Huon Pine doesn't grow half as tall) but they live a lot longer.

Huon pine seeds can be found on eBay, and you can steal some Fitzroya seeds from botanical gardens in Scotland.
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