1/2 million giant redwoods growing in the UK Vs 80k growing in California. 🌲

franksinatra
Full Member

That Redwood World website is ace. Thanks to that I’ve just learnt that the x 4 super cool douglas firs that I can see as I lay in bed are actually Giant Redwoods.

They have pretty distinctive cones, that's the easiest way to id them.

(Dougies are sort of hilariously nonconformist, you look at tree id guides and yeah, mostly they do look like in the books but every so often you find one that's gone rogue, "* it lads, I'm going to grow OUTWARDS instead of up" and it becomes a rectangle. Or "Right that's enough of this upwards lark, I'm going to go 90 degrees left for a bit, then maybe I'll go straight down til I hit the ground again and then start over and pretend I'm a different tree lol")

supernova
Full Member

I’d be happy to see the FoD planted with trees that take 1000 years to mature so the Forestry and their ‘working forest’ bullshit could * off for a millennium.

There's quite a few in the fod, not just in the bits where they've made an attraction of it but fairly random seeming in the forest and also around the towns. I think a bunch were planted there basically as an experiment in forestry, like at kilmun. Not just redwoods mind, there's allsorts, massive old red cedars and lodgepoles and silver firs and such, sometimes growing as if wild in the forest

Oh yeah speaking of Kilmun, if you're a tree nerd and down in that part of the country (near Benmore botanical gardens), it's fantastic. You've got Benmore itself obviously, and Puck's Glen nearby is a must visit too, but Kilmun's differnet, it's a forestry commission experimental arboretum, they planted out blocks of pretty much whatever might possibly make for a good future forestry tree, so rather than the usual parkland or single trees or avenues, it's just forestry blocks except full of redwoods or lodgepoles or eucalypts or, well, whatever they could get their hands on. And then just pretty much left to grow with minimal intervention. Some have totally failed, some aren't doing well, none are massively old but for a lot of these trees it's going to end up as close to a natural forest as there is anywhere outside of their home range. It's a bollocks to explore, the paths barely exist and it was never intended as an attraction but it's totally worth it.

rootes1
Full Member

posted location above – I quite often ride through them – planted in 1865 apparently:

I bought a car from a dude that lived just round the corner from there! Had to drive it back to Edinburgh so I couldn't stop long but it is stunning. And all the better for just kind of being there, rather than in an arboretum or botanical garden, I'd never heard of it til I stumbled over it. Another abandoned estate thing I think?

Reminded me of a paragraph from Steinbeck's Travels With Charley. He reaches his old home turf in Monterey and talks about the Redwoods.

"A number of years ago, a newcomer, a stranger, moved to my country near Monterey. His senses must have been blunted and atrophied with money and the getting of it. He bought a grove of sempervirens in a deep valley near the coast, and then, as was his right by ownership, he cut them down and sold the lumber, and left on the ground the wreckage of his slaughter. Shock and numb outrage filled the town. This was not only murder but sacrilege. We looked on that man with loathing, and he was marked to the day of his death"

Here’s the local tree. Was destined to be removed when the house nearby was refused insurance. That’s been rescinded.

https://www.datchetvillagesociety.org.uk/saving-datchets-landmark-170-year-old-wellingtonia/

The Riding at Santa cruz amongst the redwoods is amazing.

Nature adapts to changing climate shocker.

How'd the seeds naturally get there? Californian swallows?

bigrich
Full Member
The Riding at Santa cruz amongst the redwoods is amazing.

Obviously I'm sad in saying this but on Zwift my favourite course is Sand and Sequoias. It's not really the same though unfortunately. Lol

So coincidentally I just discovered that these articles are all basically bollocks. They all seem to be just repeating and quoting an earlier article which incorrectly compared the number of mature giant redwoods in California, vs the total number in the UK, but in reality there are hundreds of thousands of younger trees outside of the old growth groves that just aren't catalogued in the Cali numbers

Seems to be an honest mistake- California just can't get excited about a hundred year old giant redwood when they've got the big lads to look at, whereas for us even the tiddlers are a big deal. And of course the preservation arguments rightly focus on the old growth to exclusion, as there's no way to replace a 3000 year old tree unless you did it 2999 years ago.

Even if there was no comparison to California that there are 500k Giant Redwoods in the UK is a surprising fact on it’s own.

Yep, definitely.

Leave Curious explores the redwoods of the UK.

Just checked to make sure but there’s a pretty big one in the grounds of The Manor House Hotel in Castle Combe, a pretty s****y place with its own golf course, where a ‘village’ was set up for filming of the Robin of Sherwood series.

We have a few here in Clumber Park/ Thoresby

Also I've been to sea that giant one - General Sherman. Big lad. Sequoia National Parks was one of my favourites.

And that crazy on you can drive through up the Pacific coast - called in at that.

Novelty aside they are great.

So coincidentally I just discovered that these articles are all basically bollocks.

Thought it was a bit odd.

Having driven up there their forests are immense.

au contraire, the natural cycle of wildfires clears the land and opens the cones providing the idea conditions for germination.

Its putting out wildfires that is the problem.

<quote> wzzzz
Free Member

au contraire, the natural cycle of wildfires clears the land and opens the cones providing the idea conditions for germination. </quote>

Was, but currently isn't. The ground and deadfall's drier, the trees are drier, the wildfires are hotter. And human interaction is a problem; basically wherever there's human inhabitation and development we try to prevent fires but that often means that when there is a fire, it's much worse, since it's been longer since the last one. This last one's a work in progress, they do controlled burns and manual clearance now in the old groves to try and reset it a bit but it's a massive job.

Sequoia are fire resistant but not fire proof, they estimate that 20% of all of the surviving oldgrowth giants have been destroyed by fire in the last 10 years

It did seem an unlikely statistic. We’ve driven down through the Big Sur and it’s not exactly a small place - think “Northumberland”, all of it. And that’s just the bit on the coast.

The big trees there are big. Really mind-blowing huge.

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Multiple posters have stated that the seeds require fire to germinate.

I don't think this is true. Fire is an important feature of the life cycle of the natural forests, particularly in creating space for new trees to germinate, but the seeds themselves do not need any heat or smoke. At least, that is the result of 5 minutes of web searching, looking at a number of seemingly reliable sources. I didn't see any support for the claim that fire and/or smoke was particularly helpful.

(Some tree seeds do require smoke and/or fire. But sequoia are not one of them. Feel free to collect seeds from your local tree and give it a go.)