Giant Sequoias Get People’s Attention

Arboretum Detroit has gotten a little attention for our plan to plant 200 Giant Sequoias here in Detroit. This is expected and welcome. Giant Sequoias have been and continue to be a tree that gets people’s attention; they are in the news and in the lore. They were here way before humans and will be here way after. So, let us start with thanking them for being here and thanking you for being here. One of the reasons we are undertaking such an epic project is to get people talking, specifically about human caused climate change, environmental degradation, and responses to it. Whether you are a Giant Sequoia lover and/or dubious about planting a tree that is not native, you appear to be here reading this. The topics of assisted migration and climate resilience are extremely important as we see and feel directly the effects of this climate emergency.

While this Giant Sequoia project has gotten your attention, perhaps the 1,000 and counting, native trees that we have planted in our neighborhood have not. As we build our arboretum and reforest our urban neighborhood we are primarily focused on native trees and plants. We have planted over five hundred native trees and given away another five hundred from our neighborhood tree nursery. We have established acres of native meadow in our parks. And the Giant Sequoia project is no different, bringing another 2 acres of meadow and hundreds more native trees alongside and under the Sequoias. Even when we plant natives we are opening the conversation about assisted migration and climate adaptation. We are not planting the forest that would have been here in the past; we are planting the forest of the future. We are planting native trees for whom this is the northern edge of their range rather than the southern edge. We are introducing trees that may not yet know each other.  It’s interesting to see which trees are getting along and which are struggling. We are feeling and watching the climate zones migrate. It’s very interesting to help the trees run from the changing heat. They can and do run on their own, but not quite fast enough for what modern humans have thrown at them. We can’t run fast enough either. So, we are gathering the trees and digging into our home with them.

It is no longer enough to just say native trees are what we need here. The calculus is way more complicated in this era of multiple threats to the trees that result from human activity. While I love Ash, Hemlock, Beech, Red Oak, American Chestnut, and American Elm I have strong reservations about devoting my energy to planting many of these trees here right now. These trees have all been or are seriously threatened by pests and disease that have come with accumulated human impacts. Rather than putting all our energy into nursing along risky trees that are struggling to be here, we are looking at who wants to be here, who is thriving in spite of the catastrophic changes to their environment. There are so many trees who are here and do not require pampering, anxiety, and the resulting heartbreak when they succumb to the next pest or disease. We cannot really know who will be threatened next and by what. The answer is diversity. We must plant as many species as possible to ensure that we will have a forest no matter what. If we want one tree we have to plant two.

Eight year old Giant Sequoia with Eastern White Cedars in Treetroit Two

Starting from Zero?

This is why we are adding climate resilient non-native, non-invasive trees to our mix. We are not actually replacing native trees with Sequoias. What we are replacing with Giant Sequoias is asphalt.  We are planting these Sequoias on stolen, denuded, landfilled, and neglected patches of land.  At best vacant land in Detroit is covered in invasive turf, orchard grass, Japanese Knotweed, English Ivy, and miles of crumbling impermeable surfaces. This must be understood to fathom our starting point. We are not even at zero; we are at a measurable deficit. A few hundred years of settler colonial capitalism has set us way back.

We are in a polluted and stressed out landscape in a polluted and stressed out city. However minimal one might feel the value and “ecological services” of Giant Sequoias are here in Detroit, one must understand that they are far greater than acres of mowed invasive grass. This can be our starting point for the conversation about all the services that these Giant Sequoias will provide us here. Mature Sequoias can store 6 tons of carbon and scrub pounds of pollution from the air annually. As evergreens they continue to capture carbon and particulate pollution year round. Some are reporting carbon sequestration ten times the average tree. Carbon storage and air filtration benefits aside, the shade and cooling would be enough reason for planting these trees.

We are interested in shade and green beauty, but primarily in creating a vegetated buffer that will break wind and filter pollution laden air coming our way from the waste industry. There is no other tree that will create as great a wall as fast as Giant Sequoias. We seem to be able to grow this living wall faster than politicians can enact laws to protect us from these harms.

Giant Sequoias are the biggest finger we can give to the colonial capitalist waste machine. We all live downwind but in Poletown we live at the exhaust pipe. Planting trees that will grow dozens of feet in diameter and thousands of years old is the greatest stand we could ever take. This is the greatest message we can send. It arrives from the ages and speaks to a deep future. It’s a timeless message from the Earth, from way before humans took over the planet, way before humans were even a thought on this planet. 

These trees are jurassic. Dinosaurs scratched their backs on, and shaded themselves under these trees. They are fossils and they are our kin. They are our ancestors and our family, alive today. They are the biggest players on our team in the battle against global warming and pollution. They are also a cool spot in our rapidly heating city. There is no greater life force we can meet this moment with. We are so honored to be here for this, working with these trees and with the Earth to send a message that says we have been here, and we will be here.

75 year old Giant Sequoia at Lake Bluff Farms in Manistee, MI

Trees Beyond Time

In a world where everything is instant and fleeting real time, deep time is stolen from us. Time is often something that confines us, herds us, stresses us out. It’s difficult to know time that stretches out centuries before us and millenia behind. Through Giant Sequoias we connect to this deep sense of time. These clones of the Waterfall and Stagg carry DNA that continues lives from 3,000 years ago. They literally hold these years we call ancient history deep within their hearts. They have put on thousands of rings since, measuring a time so vast we have difficulty believing it and understanding it. Maybe this is why we mostly ignore it and treat trees the way we mostly do.

These trees have seen it all, including now witnessing a single animal species take over the planet and render it unlivable for thousands of beyond human kin who will never return. For this I am so sorry. I try to fathom what this means for an entire species to disappear into nothingness, let alone for this to happen every day. We are so fortunate to still have the Sequoias here. Can we take the awe and reverence we feel standing in a Giant Sequoia grove and apply that to the Earth and all the living systems that give rise to this wonder? Can we recognize that the planet is full of this wonder? Let us not waste it before we even know it. Capitalism is good at that. Let us all connect to Giant Sequoias and their long long story. Let us be part of it and not an obstruction to it.

The life force in these trees teaches us about time, respect, and resiliance. 

Be a part of letting live, of nurturing, and bringing life. Responding to the destruction and plunder of this exquisite world gifted to us. Make a statement: we stand with these trees who were here long before us and will be here long after. I will not live to see these particular trees reach anything close to maturity, but knowing that they are here and will be here living into their deep future asuages a fraction of my deep pain and ecological grief in this moment. For the brief time that I am here caring for these trees I am a part of this world as it is and as it will always be.

Baby Sequoias in Arboretum Detroit’s tree nursery - Photo by Garrett MacLean

Assisted Migration

Giant Sequoias are facing an existential crisis; they are actually endangered in their native Sierra Nevada range. There are about 500,000 Giant Sequoias living in the United Kingdom, whereas there are only about 80,000 living in the Sierras. Tens of thousands have been lost there just since 2020. However, across the Atlantic they seem to be thriving in the UK, while their home of thousands of years is presenting brand new challenges. Human caused climate change is making the Sierras much hotter and drier causing wildfires to burn with unprecedented intensity. Sequoias are known for their fire resistance, yet now they are now succumbing to the new heat. Sequoias were always thought to be indestructible. This is a big part of how a single tree can live over 3,000 years. Thick, flame-resistant bark and elevated crowns are super adapted to wildfire. Even their cones love fire and require it to open up and propagate. Are they becoming endangered in their native habitat?

We think it's a good idea to try them in many different environments and see where they can thrive next. We do not want to sit by while these miracles of the natural world become another extinction to lament.

Volunteers planting Giant Sequoia saplings into Arboretum Detroit’s tree nursery