Each Sequoia is planted in its own 100 m2 plot (about the size of a 2 bed apartment) together with c.20 other nurse ccrop treess of varying species to provide protection from frost and wind. We plant 3 native trees for every Sequoia to promote biodiversity. The trees are protected from browsing wildlife by methods recommeded by our forestry experts overseeing each grove to promote maximum growth and success.

We use local forestry contractors for each of our groves to support the local communities, and have donated Sequoia trees and provided educations sessions to local schools to help with environmental awareness and learning.

Once you have signed up as a customer for a Sequoia tree (minimum £1250 spend), you will be invited to come and plant your Sequoia(s) on one of our planting days. Thereafter you will be the registered Sequoia Patron and be provided with a certificate with the tree(s) coordiantes included so you can visit at a later date.

We are creating and upholding the highest standards in the industry with the following approach:

1. Our forests, starting with Abergavenny, have their FSC forest management certification demonstrating that we comply with world leading standards for responsible forest management.

2. Our carbon is now accredited and certified by the FSC. This accreditation shows that our carbon sequestration and carbon storage within the Giant Sequoias, including our planting plans, calculation of carbon absorbed and long term stewardship of that carbon has been audited by the Soil Association, a leading provider of sustainability certification in the UK, and certified by the FSC.

3. We have Treeconomy and their Sherwood LIDAR technology using drone scanning of our sites to provide accurate data on a per tree basis of how much growth (and therefore carbon capture) has occurred. This groundbreaking approach takes all the guesswork and inaccuracies out of the carbon reporting process to provide hard and true results.

4. We publish a register for each site on our website with a clear allocation of each Sequoia tree to its respective carbon buyer.

5. We invite our partners to come and plant their trees themselves. There is no more ironclad evidence as to the quality and real nature of our project than seeing it with one’s own eyes and planting the trees in person.

The species we plant at each of our sites include:

• Giant Sequoia

• Native trees (Oak, Rowan, Silver Birch, Cherry and more).

• Nurse crop trees (Scots Pine, Norway Spruce, Douglas Fir etc.)

Nurse Crop definition - a different species of similar growing speed to the Sequoias in the early years, which reduce lower branching, improve straightness and protect the main trees from wind and frost damage.

Giant Sequoias grow best in temperate climates where there is adequate rainfall. They are native to the Sierra Nevada moutains in California, however their habitat there is proving less viable for their survival due to the impacts of climate change. Since the Victorians started bringing over and planting Sequoia seeds in the UK our climate has proven to be suitable for them to thrive. The species can survive temperatures as low as minus 40C, and are extremely resilient to disease.

We have planted groves in Hampshire, Abergavenny and Brecon. Our current live planting site is near Abergavenny in Wales. In order to future proof our groves from drought brought about by climate change we now only plant in locations with 1 meter or more rainfall per annum. Future locations we are considering are Devon, Lake District, and Scotland.

We own the land the Sequoias are planted on. As a further precaution we are placing a restrictive covenant on the trees. Furthermore once we have reaached our goal of planting 100,000 Sequoias we intend to incorporate a foundation to become the steward of the trees for their natural lifetime.

In the event any Sequoia does not survive we replace it with a new sapling. Sequoia trees are notoriously hardy and we do not anticipate many losses of mature trees.

All our saplings are grown from our own seed stock within UK nurseries we have parnerships with.

The UK Forestry Commission quotes that within 100 years a woodland planted today would sequest 400-600 tonnes of CO2 per hectare. A Sequoia grove where the trees were growing in line with existing UK specimens, where each tree could expect to reach a 100 year volume of 50 tonnes, would sequest over 5000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere between 100 trees.

Read our full article on using Sequoias to make the UK carbon neutral HERE.

Giant Sequoias are a non-invasive species as they have not proven to propagate in the UK due to a lack of wildfires, a necessary component for them to breed in nature.

They are the fastest growing coniferous tree species on the planet. Once mature they can generate the same amount of wood in a year as the volume of a 50 ft tree with a 1ft diameter. Their growth rings can be as thick as 2 inches and they can grow by up to 5 ft a year. Local conditions such as rainfall and sunlight can have significant impacts on growth rates. Our forecast for UK Sequoias using the data available is 2cm diameter growth and 44cm of height growth per annum.

Our primary goal is to create a network of old growth Giant Sequoias in the UK to replicate what few are left in their native habitat in the USA. Effectively an insurance against the worsening impacts of climate change that has brought about droughts, superheated wildfires, and greater bark beetle fatalities. Sequoias were native to the UK pre-Ice Age. More recently they returned here during the Victorian period by those facinated by their size and magnificence. We now have many thousands of Sequoias in the UK and they have proven to be entirely non-invasive.

We get asked regularly about why we are not planting exclusively native species. Our response is that we are facing a very real climate emergency caused by an increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to find a response to this escalating issue that is in proportion to the cause, the mass burning of fossil fuels. There is currently no industrial viable solution on offer, so we must turn to nature and plant trees. The primary resource that trees use up that is in scarce supply is land, or more accurately land with owners who are willing to give up any commercial use and dedicate their asset to tree planting for carbon capture. As land is the limiting factor for tree planting, we must plant trees that are the most efficient at carbon capture per acre. The species most capable of carbon capture per acre is the Giant Sequoia, due to its massive volume accumulated over time. Even over a 100 year period, a Sequoia grove can capture in the region of 10x more CO2 vs. a native tree woodland. We are not ignoring the plight of native trees, we care deeply about them and would never cut down or harm a native woodland. In fact we plant three native trees for each Sequoia at our sites to promote biodiversity. Oak is our predominant tree of choice given it supports more biodiversity than any other native tree. Two little known facts are that Giant Sequoias were once native to the UK pre-ice age, and they do not propagate in the UK due to a lack of wildfires needed to open their seed cones. They are totally non-invasive for that reason. Bottom line is the world is heating up at an alarming rate. That in itself is a major threat to UK native woodlands. Our project is a response to today’s climate emergency by unleashing the power of the most mighty CO2 capturing tree on earth, that not only removes CO2, but holds onto it for over 1000 years. We care deeply about native trees, but we also care about our planet, and this is our way of doing the maximum to save it, and the diversity of species and ecosystems that it supports. We are looking big picture, and long term.

To put this in further context, according to Timothy J. Fahey, professor of ecology in the department of natural resources at Cornell University,

“An approximate value for a 50-year-old oak forest would be 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide sequestered per acre,”. That is 15 tonnes. By comparison a giant sequoia grove will be closer to 200 tonnes over the same period, using UK growth rates seen in Sequoias that have been in the UK for over 150 years.

Reference link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-of-carbon-dioxide-does-our-forest-absorb.html