Moving Day

I decided it was time to stop coddling my little sprouts. At this point, all of my seedlings had a good amount of secondary leaves and seemed ready to be moved out of the grow lights.

I had originally planned on keeping them in the lights for a long time, but changed my mind when I saw how the lights treated two of my older seedlings. I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old under the lights for three weeks. At the end of the period, the leaves had turned a deep blue-green color, and the trunks didn't seem as rigid. The color is an indication that the leaves were adjusting to find the best color to absorb the artificial light.

The color of a leaf shows the light waves that its chlorophyll reflects, and thus, doesn't absorb. Since the leaves were a little more blue than the ones outside, I can deduce that my lights are lacking in (at least) the blue spectrum.

As for why the trunks seemed less rigid - that may be due to there being no wind in my garage, that the light may not be bright enough, or that it's only really reaching the top parts of the tree, giving too little to the tree overall.

Anyway, the tree seedlings have spent two days in full sun with nothing but positive signs. The soil mixture is well-draining enough that I'll have to water these every day, possibly twice when it's really hot outside. I'm going to play it safe and keep the trees close to the house to protect them from heavy wind and rain.

In this photo are my coast redwoods, giant sequoias, and bristlecone pines.

Say Hello to My Little Friends!

The mailman made me sweat it out a day longer than I was hoping, but my thirteen seedlings arrived today. To recap, I ordered three seedlings from Welker's 2005 crop, and ten smaller ones from their 2006 crop. Impressive shipping job - they rolled each of the seedlings up in newspaper, and bundled them closely together in a small package. There were no problems with the seedlings after their four day, cross-country journey. The soil in the tubes was still moist, and the leaves hadn't lost any of their color.

Following Welker's instructions, I quickly transplanted the seedlings from their soil tubes into pots and gave them a little water bath to help them get situated. I gotta say, they're way 'cuter' than I expected. The leaves are firm, but not prickly, and the older ones had already grown some flaky bark. I'm going to hold off about a week before using fertilizer, and then follow up every 10-14 days as suggested by the product's label.

In partial shade, sequoias will grow tall quickly, but in full sun, they grow fuller. I can wait for height, but fullness is pretty important to me.

Sequoias are the fastest growing of any conifer, or cone-bearing seed plant. Under ideal conditions, they may see growth of up to six feet by their third year! And, once established, they should grow up to two inches thicker (one-inch growth ring) each year. Here on my deck, they'll receive a good portion of sunlight throughout the day.

Preparing the Babies' Rooms...

With thirteen little seedlings in a on the way, it was time to set up their homes for the next 2-3 years. I'm going to keep the seedlings in plastic 5/4 gallon pots of soil/sand mixture, fertilizing them bi-weekly with a soluble 24-8-16 mixture from Welker's Nursery, designed especially for potted giant sequoias.

For the soil mixture, I combined all that I had read online with some small changes to cut costs. It's very important for the soil to be well-drained, so I filled the bottom 1 1/2 inches of the pot with drainage rock. The soil is a mixture of roughly half tree & shrub planting mix and half cheap potting soil, along with about 1/8 sand mixed in for drainage (I'm aware that doesn't add up to 1, but am too lazy to do anything about it).