An Arborist Daydream

Just over a year ago My wife and I took our kids on a road trip to the redwoods in northern California. It was amazing. I loved being there and I was blown away by the sheer grandeur of those trees. I plan on going again.

Several months later, I came across this article about growing a forest rapidly.

Maybe you can already see where this is going.

At some point over the last little while I wondered if I could somehow mix the ideas in the article to make rapid redwood forests.

In fact I have this secret dream of planting such a patch somewhere hidden, but not too difficult to get to. I’d use the three types of redwoods, douglas firs, maybe lodgepole pines, heck I could throw in some quaking aspens for color in the fall. Pretty much any tree I would find amusing. But the primary goal would be to establish redwoods.

Now, I’ve read that redwoods can grow 6-10 feet per year. That means before I shuffle off this mortal coil I could revisit my secret forest and there would be some very tall trees. They wouldn’t be truly huge in diameter yet, but that’s okay. In a couple of hundred years, someone else will discover my forest and be amazed.

As I’ve batted this idea around in my head, I’ve had fun imagining many “what if”s. After all, if I love the redwoods, then everybody else would, too, right? And not everybody lives close enough to road trip it to northern California. So they should be planted everywhere.

What if somebody planted these forests in a bunch of yards in abandoned neighborhoods?

What if several people planted these tomorrow?

What if a large conservationist movement did it?

How many years would it take before the trees got big enough for anyone to really notice?

I haven’t exactly done any research for this, so it’s mostly a pleasant daydream. Redwoods might not be suited for places I want them (Yellowstone, the park down the street from my house, etc…) And I have this nagging fear that maybe introducing such massive non-native species somewhere would cause ecological mayhem.

Still, if here in 14 years you are hiking about and you come across a grove of redwoods where none should be, go ahead and think of me. Just don’t tell the government about my plan. I don’t want to get in trouble.

P.S. When I lived in Brazil, I had the chance to see a few of what I believe were Kapok Trees, which are also pretty cool. Feel free to plant some of those, too.