Archangel Champion Giant Sequoia Trees Growing In The UK

Some 50 years ago, David Milarch, a tree farmer from Michigan, was used to seeing old growth forests being felled for timber, but the scale and thoroughness of this destruction across North America was not fully understood until later years.  As it stands today David tells us that a staggering 98% of America’s old growth forests have been destroyed.

David is a man of positive action and in 2008 he founded the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, using his skills to propagate, archive and plant environmentally important trees – trees with the genetic strength to live the longest and grow the most successfully over time.  The best examples of their species.

In a world where the biggest and oldest trees have yielded the most timber for loggers, few remain that are of the strongest genetic gene pool.  David and his team have searched far and wide for the most impressive trees from a number of species, and their propagation and planting work has been invaluable, perhaps no more so than in the case of the Giant Sequoia and Coastal Redwood whose dwindling habitat and collapsing numbers has created a real sense of urgency.  Today both these species can be found on the IUCN Endangered Species Red List.

Using cuttings and seeds from the oldest and biggest trees, he and his team are growing new forests from a gene pool that has been the most robust and successful for thousands of years, which is incredibly important at a time when resilience to climate change can mean the difference between the success or failure of new planting efforts.

The critical work at Archangel has produced clones and offspring from magnificent 3,000 year-old Giant Sequoias.  Their genetic success has been proven literally over millennia, however their native habitat and climate is changing and it is heartbreaking to see them now dying in ever greater numbers.  Today their main threat comes from drought, which puts stress on the trees making them more susceptible to the likes of bark beetle and disease, and creates an environment that can lead to superheated fires, also caused by forest floor debris build up from years of human fire suppression (historically forest fires are commonplace in Sequoia groves, but far less intense and seldom fatal to older trees as their fireproof red bark protects them and the crowns far up in the canopy remain intact).

When The Great Reserve project was founded (then One Life One Tree) I reached out to David, and we discussed the issues facing the species and how we might find a way to help Giant Sequoias find root in an alternative habitat where they might have the opportunity to thrive again.  Many Sequoias were brought over to the UK by the Victorians in the 19th Century and have grown successfully on our shores, so creating new groves in the UK is a life raft opportunity for these climate refugees, an insurance policy against what harsh years may lie ahead in their native US habitat.

You can watch David and I discussing the project in an interview HERE.

Recent press on their success in our climate can be read about in the New Scientist.

David and I worked up a plan together and Archangel shipped over 50 saplings that had been propagated from some of the largest Giant Sequoias still alive at that time: Stagg and Waterfall.  Stagg miraculously survived the Castle fire (the same one that destroyed Bob’s cabin featured in an earlier newsletter).  Unfortunately, Waterfall did not (https://www.ilovetrees.net/stagg-waterfall-perishes/).

We can take some comfort that the precious genetics of both of these trees are now preserved on the Welsh hillsides in groves near Brecon and Abergavenny.  We call them our Champion Trees, marked out on the Maps below.   Thank you to the Patrons of these very special trees, and all our other Sequoia Patrons whose trees are keeping them company and will create new seeds to propagate from in years to come.

 Please note Giant Sequoias do not propagate naturally in the UK, so the species is non-invasive and stays rooted solely in the areas they are planted.

 So far we have planted over 2000 Giant Sequoias in the UK.  Our target is to reach 100,000 to replicate what few are left in California (c.80,000 in 2023), creating The Great Reserve.

Using the links below you can view maps of our Brecon and Abergavenny Sequoia trees within their groves showing the Champion trees location (marked with red icons).

Please note that at the time of publishing this article Google’s map of the area is out by c.20m to the East.

Brecon

Abergavenny

We fund our project via the sale of Sequoia Carbon to businesses (carbon offsets) and individuals, who come and roll up their sleeves on planting days and plant their Giant Sequoias.

Sequoia Carbon made available for purchase and grown within The Great Reserve is FSC accredited.  All carbon grown in The Great Reserve is monitored by Treeconomy.co.

Below is an image and video link showing off one of the Champion Sequoias at our Brecon site.