THE LITTLE SEQUOIA THAT COULD
Sarah Hatton’s tiny (for now) seedling defies odds, survives West Quebec winter
A tree native to California wasn’t expected to grow when Chelsea artist Sarah Hatton planted it in west Quebec, writes TOM SPEARS, but the seedling is defying the odds.
CHELSEA The expert view says you can’t expect to grow giant sequoia trees, native to California, in Quebec. But Sarah Hatton’s baby giant has survived its first winter.
The seedling is “still unchallenged as the biggest sequoia in Chelsea,” the artist notes.
And even the arboretum staff at the Central Experimental Farm is interested in her new adventure in forestry.
“I’m just really, really interested in plants” without being an expert, Hatton said this week. “I went right for the giant, right for the biggest one I could.”
She bought 50 seeds after hearing there was an informal project to try growing sequoias in Quebec. But why did she do it? “Why not? Why not try?”
Oh. So she started the seeds in little pots on top of her fridge to catch the waste heat. About half germinated, more than the seed company predicted, but then rot struck.
Two seedlings were left, but one of those died just before she was ready to move the plants outdoors.
She planted the last survivor, by this time a year old, and watered every day through the drought that followed. Her theory is that cold, dry wind kills sequoias, so she put a cover on the baby tree and let the snow cover it.
“It was a bit of a Hail Mary, but keeping the mulch levels really high I knew it wouldn’t dry out.
“I still held my breath when I peeled back the cover this spring.”
And it lived. She’s hoping for about 15 centimetres of growth this year, but that’s just a guess.
The tree sits in the Canadian Shield, in a maple forest, with “a very optimistic clearing” of three metres in all directions.
Hatton also planted it on a high point of her property, hoping that one day it will be a landmark.
“It has very soft needles. It’s almost a silky feeling,” she said.
Sequoias have been known to live for more than 2,000 years in California. They have been exported as far north as British Columbia, and to Europe, but these are milder climates than wintry West Quebec.
She noted on Facebook: “Growing a tree that will only reach maturity in my great-great grandchildren’s lifetime is a cool, time-travely kind of feeling.”
But it’s not (quite) the only sequoia in the capital region.
At the Central Experimental Farm, experts who run the arboretum have been experimenting with sequoias for years, with mixed results.
“We have two here,” said spokesman Crispin Wood, but unlike Hatton’s survivor they are taken into a greenhouse each winter.
He thinks that if someone found a sequoia that comes from a parent growing at high altitude, it might have the right genes to resist cold.
“We’ve attempted it before, but we’re well outside the zone for a true sequoia.” The sequoias left outside at the arboretum always died.
“She might have that genetic freak that could survive the winters,” he suggests, and surviving a few more years and establishing a strong, woody trunk will improve its chances.
“In 10 years we might be knocking on her door, asking if we can grab some material to propagate. If she has that one that survives, then she has won the lottery.”