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Old 22-03-2003, 09:56 AM
DLNorton
 
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Default Growing a Sequoia

"Cedric Rouvrais" wrote in message news:52fcbf216e0866dd9df9d7ec9b8fba95.122560@myga te.mailgate.org...
Hi,

I'm busy germinating giant Sequoia seeds and they seem to get along
well, they grow nicely for the first few weeks and then all of a sudden
the leaves dry up and the plant dies (usually they grow to a height of
2"/5cm before drying up).
They are very young and still are in the nursery (a small box that keeps
the air humide).
Initially i thought that maybe the conditions were too humide for the
seedlings so i moved some of them out of the nursery and that didn't
help much.

Has anyone grown Sequoias, if so in what conditions ? What kind of soil
did you use ?


First off..where are you located?

I managed to root Coastal Redwood cuttings. Out of 15 cuttings, 3
actually took, and out of those three, one grew very well.

Redwoods and Sequoias are in the same family. These trees tend to
like dryer conditions, but so much as to let them dry out. I don't
think the humidity would be and issue. It just might be the soil.
I've been the Redwood National Forest in Northern California and to
Sequoia National Park. Both places differ in soil conditions..so it
could be anything.

However, you can use the same rules for Cedars and apply them to
Redwoods and Sequoias. Which I think is 1/3peat 1/3loam and
1/3inorganic...with a little more in the inorganic.

Perhaps moving out into dryer conditions too quickly put them into
shock? Also, have you been fertilizing them? If so, hold off doing
that and just keep up on the watering. I'm located in Southern
California so the conditions are very dry, but you still have to be
careful when watering. The Deodar Cedars out here do very well and
can stand up to our hellacious droughts. But you put one in a pot,
and it's a different story.

Any rate...I hope someone else can give some more insight into this.

-DLNorton