Lessons To Be Learned From The Redwoods

In 1937, the redwood was designated as our state tree.  There are 2 species, the coast redwood: Sequoia sempervirens, and the giant sequoia: Sequoia gigantea.  The coast redwood is the tallest tree in the world averaging heights of 300 feet and the giant sequoia is known for its massive trunk measuring up to 30 feet in diameter.  They can live for over 3,000 years!  The oldest one currently known is estimated to be 2,200 years.  The locations of the oldest trees are protected for fear of vandalism.  So much for respecting our elders....

We have them growing in our city.  We have them growing at the entrance to our school.  One was chopped down due to a leaning problem and there was concern that it would fall.  However, redwoods can regrow from fallen branches, downed trunks, or even from the base of cut trees,  an epitome of, "Never say die."   And within a year, the base of the cut tree has sent forth tender, bright green shoots.  Maybe some of those shoots will survive to grow into trees and create a 'fairy ring'.  I hope our students return to see its progress 10, 20, 50 years from now. 

Another unlikely place in the city has redwoods growing.  The Tenderloin.  Darryl Smith had an idea to change a dank, dirty alley into something positive.  The work to transform this narrow area surrounded on 3 sides by tall buildings into a park, started in 1989 when he planted a redwood tree there.  Young redwoods can grow 1-3 feet a year as they search for the sun.  The first redwood planted there has now reached the tops of the 4-5 story  buildings surrounding it.  Darryl has since planted more redwoods in the garden.   In May 2009, Cohen Alley was renamed "Tenderloin National Forest".  

History Of The Tenderloin National Forest

 In the wild, if redwoods touch as they grow, they may merge into one tree.  Their trunks as well as their root systems can intertwine or merge into one, supporting each other and becoming stronger. 
Something people seem to be doing in this neighborhood too!


A friend sent me another link about redwoods and those that study and protect them. 
Climbing The Redwoods
An incredible story of a husband and wife team who climb into these giants to study them and advocate for them.  A description of redwoods unlike any other.

The crown of an ancient coast redwood can bristle with rotting extra trunks, and it can be crisscrossed with dead limbs that may be up to several feet in diameter, ... a falling branch can tear off other branches, triggering a cascade of spinning redwood spars the size of railroad ties. A falling branch can spike itself five feet into the ground. Redwoods can have pieces of dead wood in them that are bigger than Chevrolet Suburbans. .... Redwoods occasionally shed whole sections of themselves. Sillett calls this process calving. The tree releases a kind of woodberg, and as it collapses it gives off a roar that can be heard for a mile or two, and it leaves the area around the calved redwood looking as if a tank battle had been fought there.

"A tree is not conscious, the way we are, but a tree has a perfect memory. If you injure a tree, its cambium-its living wood-will respond, and the tree will grow differently in response to the injury. The trunk of a tree continually records everything that happens to it. But these trees have no voice. My life's work is to speak for these trees."

 

Which of course leads to one of the most famous tree climbers, Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived on 2 six-by-six-foot platforms in a redwood tree named Luna,  for 738 days as she sought to protect these trees.  

What lessons can we learn from that which has lived so long here before us?