A lot of visitors have been asking lately “what’s wrong with the Giant Sequoias?!”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Blithewold, we have one of – if not the - tallest Sequoiadendron giganteum this side of the Mississippi. Ours is a just a baby, not quite 100 years old and only 90 feet or so tall. It’s definitely a feature on the property – people who don’t notice it rising above the Enclosed Garden asked to be directed to it and just last week I heard that a (must have been very romantic) marriage proposal had occured right under it (and was accepted).

Anyhoo, this winter took a noticeable toll on the tree as well as the dozen other smaller babies on the property. They’re brown! Sequoias are prone to Phytophthera fungi which can destroy terminal growth. But that’s not our problem (knock wood). We suspect instead that it has to do with the bizarre nearly non-winter. Temperatures remained weirdly warm through December and a lot of plants didn’t get properly notified to quit growing for the season. We think that the sequoias had tender growth that was hit by the late but sudden freeze.

They’re starting to green up again so never fear! The big one is still a beauty and well worth a gaze and maybe even another romantic moment…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under F.A.Q., trees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.