Burl Sprouting

When they were deciding what items to sell at the Muir Woods National Monument gift shop, a gardener must have been one of the decision makers. And this gardener must have known that others gardeners would never be able to resist buying a redwood burl to try and grow a redwood of their own.

I certainly couldn't!!

 A burl is a growth or mass of dormant buds that forms at the base or on the roots, sides, or branches of trees. The grain of the wood in a burl is deformed and often highly prized for carving and

polishing.

The directions on my redwood burl instructed me to place it in a shallow, ceramic container and add water about an inch up the side of the burl. It receives approximately four hours of direct sunlight sitting on my patio. 

 After two weeks I noticed tiny, pale buds.

 These buds slowly got taller....

 and began to form needles.

The buds have definitely established themselves and seem to be quite happy. Whether or not they are actually redwood babies is yet to be seen! And whether or not the babies will be happy with this environment is a whole 'nother ball game!!

The trees in California depend on Carl (the name affectionately given to the thick, west coast fog that often blankets San Francisco.) This fog keeps the atmosphere moist, reducing the amount of water the redwoods lose through evaporation and transpiration.  Redwoods also require moist soil conditions found in the rainy coastal West. But our gulf coast humidity is pretty dang close to fog, providing a moist atmosphere and we have a damp, stream bed to transplant them to, so who knows!?!

It will be fun to see what happens!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

~Robert Louis Stevenson

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
’Til it’s gone...
~Joni Mitchell, from “Big Yellow Taxi”

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

~Henry David Thoreau