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Author Topic: Red wood  (Read 2796 times)

Bert

  • Joined Jan 2012
  • Isle of Mull
Red wood
« on: May 06, 2014, 07:38:00 am »
For Christmas I got the other half some Red Wood seeds in a nice gift box. I thought it was just a gimmick, you know the joke present. But bugger me, after a month in the fridge on damp kitchen roll, then sown in a pot in the tunnel, 8 of the little fellas have germinated  :thumbsup: :excited: . They are about an inch tall now at 6 week old. Has anyone got any experience with growing these ? Any tips for this early stage in there very long lives  :fc: .
When I say red wood I really do mean those massive trees from California sequoiadendron giganteum. You know the ones, like General Sherman  :roflanim:
I would also like to point out the other half has done sod all towards growing his trees :tree:

bloomer

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • leslie, fife
  • i have chickens, sheep and opinions!!!
Re: Red wood
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2014, 07:40:45 am »
no idea, not sure how they'll cope with the wind up there,


there are several mature examples in scotland though so they clearly can grow here...


good luck, just think they'll be fully grown in between 300 and a thousand years if nothing happens to them in the mean time!!!

ellied

  • Joined Sep 2010
  • Fife
    • Facebook
Re: Red wood
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2014, 09:15:37 am »
One of my neighbours has a sequoia growing successfully in north Fife, but her garden is big enough to take it and there are lots of other trees around to provide wind protection so I guess it is sheltered enough. 

Whether Mull could support one or not I don't know, but as long as you plant them far enough away from buildings, then even a relatively short one that doesn't survive a storm one day would be a good supply of firewood I suppose ;)  Not sure how close you should plant them to provide shelter to each other but not lose the nutrients from overstretched soil tho. 

If OH isn't really that interested, why not grow them on in big pots and sell them to the rich and significantly garden spaced as expensive conversation items.. ;)
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shygirl

  • Joined May 2013
Re: Red wood
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2014, 10:15:30 am »
i did grow apple and avocado trees from pips a few times  ;D. i got bored after a while but id guess and say keep them indoors then into greenhouse til the are too tall.

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Red wood
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2014, 09:48:52 pm »
I grew 15 giant red woods from 20 or so seeds after collecting a red wood cone at Warwick castle in 1995.
 To germinate them I stratified them in the fride for three months and then raised them in a simple box up with a thermostatically controlled home made plant raiser with a 50 watt light bulb as the heat source & a Perspex sheet for the lid .

 Each seed was in it's own 3 inch plant pot sown at about 1/2  deep and set on its edge like you do with marrow seeds etc. Don't ask me why ..it seemd reasonable to say .." Flat seed so sow it on its edge " .

 This box used to sit in the potting shed near the window but out of direct sunlight , can't remember how long it took to germinate



 Perhaps look it up on the " RHS " website they will ( used to ) give FOC  a lot of info on growing almost any kind of seed or propagation method etc . 

I was using a trigger spray pack every morning with a baby bio solution to keep them ever so slightly damp , Any condensation was wiped off the Perspex each morning and on really warm days I lifted the Perspex up on clothes pegs to give some much need ventilation .
to the contents .

 Potted them up at about three inches tall and then re-potted ghem several times till they were over wintered in  4 gallon plastic buckets with several crocked up drain holes in each bucket .  Using John Innes potting  mix and left on the north side of a wall for over wintering but slightly protected for the icy North winds by hedges  .

They were set in place the following March in a 2 foot x 2 foot hole,  half filled with quality well composted manures and mixed in with JI's potting mix till the hole was able to take the bucket ( pack soil around the bucket to give you the correct size hole you will be transferring into them , knock the bucket sides and careful slip the contents out on to a pair of hands , then invert it and gently put it in the hole .. gently water in with a couple of buckets of rainwater & some basic tom fed .

 I grew them to about 800 mm tall at 50 mtrs apart and set them up as boundary markers . Enclosing them in pig wire so it stood out above any weeds or grasses that might grow  and an inner wall of 1/2  chicken wire to keep the rabbits & hares off them & whacking in a treated 7 foot x 4 inch post as the boundary marker .

It was easy to take a trip on the big ride on mower c/w sweeper /collector to keep the area weed free and then fairly easy to de weed the pens. ..in the end I kept putting cut shapes of thick walled brown cardboard  around the bases of the redwoods to suppress the weeds & gave a sprinkle of slug pellets around the wire edges to stop the slugs having breeding  holidays under the cardboard .

 Each sapling had to be given a bucket of water at least once a week from March till the end of September or the middle of October as that is the driest time of the year there .
I added some first stage liquid tomato feed to the water on all occasions  as the " soil " there was imported inert construction stuff that had been put through a 10 mm grading screen system to remove all steel re bar & larger rubble /concrete lumps

 The biggest problem was keeping the enclosures weed free so as not to choke the saplings . After three years they were about 1000 mm tall  and starting to complete well with the taller weeds like sow thistles , burdocks & the tall Scottish thistles
 
I sold the property at that point , the new owner was quite different to me . Apparently he  kept spraying everything in agricultural grade Round Up & killed the lot. Then he put up a sheep fence and sprayed 2 mtrs either side of it three times a year so he could let his St Bernard's run loose on his " new fully enclosed puppy farm " .
« Last Edit: June 02, 2014, 09:50:54 pm by cloddopper »
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

 

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