Survival of Quebec sequoia a tall order
This spring, The Citizen’s Tom Spears looks at what makes our not-quite-warm, not-quite-cold season tick. It’s a series we call The Science of Spring, and today we find a tree that shouldn’t be able to live in our region, but does somehow. The only sequoia in Eastern Canada has made it through its fifth winter in Chelsea, standing 61 feathery centimetres tall and preparing now for a spring growth spurt.
It’s six years since Chelsea artist Sarah Hatton planted 50 sequoia seeds indoors, and waited.
The sequoia is native to California. It is the world’s tallest tree species, and can live well into its second millennium. But it prefers gentle California weather.
Most of Hatton’s seedlings died early on, but one little survivor endured the early months indoors, and transplanting outdoors, and finally a first Canadian winter. It has not looked back.
We caught up with Hatton to see what she found when the snow melted. (A point of style: The artist calls her tree “her,” not “it.”)
How do you take care of her?
“I cover her with the largest Styrofoam cone over winter, after a few frosts have toughened her up. The goal is to protect her from the sub-zero dry winds.
“She gets fertilized before each growth spurt, early spring and midsummer. I looked up the formula that they use in California nurseries, but I mix my own local approximation since I thought that ordering cross-border fertilizer over the Internet might not be the best idea.”
She also waters the tree generously and applies mulch.
Do you think your tree will survive in the long term?
“It is impossible to know this for sure, but I am not seeing much evidence of this tree struggling with either the annual deep freezes, or the two periods of drought that she has lived through. I think that once the trunk is just a bit more substantial, it may not be as necessary to fully cover the tree over winter, although I am sure that I will protect the tree from cold winds while it is still young.
“Part of why this story is so intriguing is that all of the other seedlings from this batch did not survive. What exactly makes this one persevere?”
Fine, but why a sequoia? After all, the forest is full of trees already.
“Ah, but an interesting garden isn’t about quantity.
“I like to make an adventure out of all aspects of my life, including my botanical experiments. There is a chance that one day this tree will be an oddball monument, and a testament to a whole lot of optimism. That’s all the reason I needed to make me want to try.”
The tree has its own Twitter account, with 12 followers at press time: @ChelseaSequoia.