Redwoods in SoCal

Previously I attempted to turn San Diego into the Bay Area by planting redwood trees around my house and in a nearby canyon.  This has not come to fruition; after attempting even sillier techniques, I resorted to the correct way of doing it (and with the little kits you can buy), and even then wasn't able to make one grow.  But all is not lost.  Gary Valle reported last year on a grove of redwoods (planted by humans) doing well in Malibu Creek State Park, but also links to a short 2004 report documenting the rapid decline of landscaping redwoods planted in Ventura County, and broadly surveying their use elsewhere in the state outside their native climate.

The author blames pathogens rather than climate, although the latter could predispose to the former, and with a spotty distribution that's more intense in certain areas.  But hey.  At least the invasion is begun!




Above: Rose Canyon, two centuries from now.

Redwood Cloning Attempt #1

ABSTRACT: I tried to clone a redwood from a branch instead of a root and it didn't work. Also, I'm a big dummy.

INTRODUCTION: Redwoods are cool, so I wanted to grow one in a cup, and I know you can because you can buy them like that.

METHOD: I found a redwood branch on a trail in Ventana Wilderness (Los Padres NF near Big Sur). I took it home. After two weeks of letting it lay on the floor I put it in the bottom half of a 1 L plastic soda bottle with soil, gave it some water and a *little* light, and put a plastic bag around it (with plenty of holes) to seal in the moisture. I watered it once a week, despite a certain person (let's just call her "A.R.") who is a nasty person and wanted this to fail from the beginning.

RESULTS: Dead tree branch sticking out of soil in the bottom half of a 1 L plastic soda bottle. Well aren't you happy A.R. Now go steal pennies out of wishing wells too.

DISCUSSION: The hell with it. I'm just going to buy one at Muir Woods or somewhere else.

REFERENCES: Your mom (personal correspondence).

NorCal Round-up

1) Registered for the Oakland Running Festival? Several races on 25 March, check it out here.

2) I finally went and saw my albino redwood, in Henry Cowell State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The albinism is of course the result of a low or near-zero cholorplast count, which means the trees only survive by getting nutrients from the root systems of their non-albino clone brethren. They still can't grow very tall. Interestingly, unlike the "solid" albino below, the one I saw at Henry Cowell had albino branches, or even some branches that weren't all albino, and even some twigs where not all the needles on the same twig were albino! This being the case, I was trying to be a tree pathologist and diagnose the process going on in the plant to produce this non-continuous pattern. It seems more likely that all parts of the plant had chloroplasts as they were growing, but that early in the growth of the branches they die for some reason. Cytoskeleton problem maybe?


From Arleen Olson Photography.

3) Ventana Wilderness, where the southernmost redwoods are, remains outstanding. I decided to play a game and see if there were flowers of every color of the rainbow on the exposed parts of the trail, and "won" in the first mile (plus some nice big white-purple daturas and some pink I don't even know, but the shore was purty.) In this dry winter, it's drawn crowds like I've never seen, particarly on Pine Ridge Trail on the way to Sykes Hot Springs. This is partly owing to morons like me who go around shouting how awesome Ventana is. But once you go there you really can't help it.


One of those exposed sections of Pine Ridge. From xasauantoday.

4) Instead of trying to grow redwoods from seed, I brought back a branch (one that had already been broken off a tree and was laying on the trail) to see if I can clone one that way.

5) Over 50% done putting together clickable maps for Nobody Hikes in LA. Driving through Whittier or Irvine and want to know where to find a trail? This is for you! Note: as I write this post, all the hikes are not yet included on here since I'm not finished, although by the time you read this post they may be.


View Master Map - Nobody Hikes in LA in a larger map

Follow-up on Noyo Redwoods - SUCCESS!

In November of last year I passed along an an appeal from the Save the Redwoods League to help protect the Noyo redwoods. It was marked for harvest and was set to be cut down on April 1st. It turns out that we (the people of California) were successful and dug in to make a difference - the Noyo redwoods now belong to the Save the Redwoods League, where they're safe. Some of the trees even bear marks where they were planned to be cut down - talk about the nick of time. This was done privately, without taxpayer support, which is increasingly how it seems we're going to have to do conservation.

Unfortunately the same is not true of our state parks. Out of the 70 that are being closed, SIXTEEN of them contain redwood forests. California can't afford to lose this resource. They're a symbol of the state. The Redwoods League is working to protect them too - learn more here.

Redwood Fix

I got mine over New Years up in Tha Bay. If you didn't get yours, here it is:

Note: all those redwood cones that I planted don't seem to have sprouted. I found out after the fact that the groundskeepers would have gotten them when they came up. Too bad, because if ever there was redwood-friendly weather in San Diego, we've been having it this year.