The Daily Populous Sunday October 6th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by mlive.com and submitted by franklin_rutland

DETROIT – A giant sequoia forest could soon be growing in a Detroit neighborhood.

Arboretum Detroit, which owns and manages a system of parks in the Poletown East neighborhood, has plans to plant 200 giant sequoia trees on vacant land.

The nonprofit has already planted about 20 of these fast-growing, carbon-eating trees around the neighborhood, but “we want to do a whole park,” said Andrew “Birch” Kemp, co-director and board president.

There are 100 sequoia seedlings planted at the organization’s nursery. The seedlings, planted about 10 inches apart in two rows, are watched over by one of the older sequoias.

RELATED: Giant sequoia saplings thriving Up North near Lake Michigan

All 120 of the arboretum’s sequoias come from Archangel Ancient Tree Archive in Copemish.

“From the devastation of some of the worst pollution, they should be applauded,” David Milarch, founder of Archangel and a Detroit native, said of Arboretum Detroit. “We just provide the sequoias.”

He estimates that, in 25 years, the seedlings will be 60 to 80 feet tall with trunks you can’t wrap your arms around.

Kemp picked them up last spring.

RELATED: Northern Michigan’s giant sequoia must be seen to be believed

“It was so hilarious, too, because we have a 2002 Subaru Outback and we were trying to fit 100 trees in there,” Kemp said.

They were successful in that effort and they were planted at the arboretum’s tree nursery, he said.

Seen here shortly after they were planted during spring 2024, giant sequoia seedlings are watched over by an older sequoia at the Arboretum Detroit tree nursery. These 100 seedlings are expected to be part of a giant sequoia forest in Detroit's Poletown East neighborhood.Arboretum Detroit

The seedlings are doing well, Kemp said. They require a lot of work, including weeding the area around them and keeping them well-watered.

The hope is that the seedlings will be replanted at their permanent home by fall 2025, he said.

The arboretum is working to purchase the future forest land from Detroit Public Schools, Kemp said. The city block is the former site of a school that has since been demolished.

RELATED: Arboretum on Lake Michigan bluff has 80 tree species, including giant sequoia, dawn redwood

After land is secured – whether it’s the school site or piecing together several parcels – the real work of park-building begins. And that’s cleanup, he said. That involves removing invasive species and trash, plus remediating the soil.

“It’s like a sense of relief for the land,” Kemp said.

New flora can be planted after the cleanup.

Giant sequoia seedlings are watched over by an older sequoia at the Arboretum Detroit tree nursery. These 100 seedlings were planted during spring 2024. They are expected to be part of a giant sequoia forest in Detroit's Poletown East neighborhood.Arboretum Detroit

For this project, there will be 200 sequoias plus 200 native trees that would be interspersed, Kemp said. The sequoias, particularly good at scrubbing pollution, would be planted more “upwind” on the heavy pollution side with the natives downwind.

The 20 older sequoias are about 4-5 feet tall with one coming in at 9 feet, proving they can thrive in Detroit, Kemp said.

“It will be something you can see and approach,” he said. “The (sequoias) are going to live and do well.”

It’s unclear why sequoias are doing so well in Michigan, a climate that would usually be considered too cold for these trees. The natural range is the Sierra Nevada mountains’ western slopes, which is much warmer and dryer.

Propagating trees like sequoias and redwoods is important, Milarch said, because they sequester 10 times more carbon dioxide than other trees. Only 4% of the world’s redwood and sequoia forests survive today, he said.

mr_bynum on October 5th, 2024 at 21:01 UTC »

That’s cool! Hope the climate is right for them