Growing Evergreen Trees to 300 Years Old

I have this idea rolling around in my head. Wouldn't it be cool to try to grow a grove of trees until they reach 300 years old? To set up a system that loves and protects them for at least that long?

These trees can grow longer than that. 500 years, a thousand years are all feasible. But I limit my thought experiment because of the human factors. What would a long-standing permaculture grove look like?

Paths. Trees do not like you to step on their feet.

Thick substories for weed control--cherries, maples, oemleria, and shorter stuff like Oregon grape or snowberry under the midstory. Weedy grasses and annuals kill many long-lived trees. Even pines like bunchgrasses better, but pines can't live 1000 year. Which evergreens are you talking about?

Protect water sources by building underground aqueducts. This will help keep the predator to deer ratio advantageous to the midstory and substory.

Burn weedy woody species and any weedy annuals that take root and overseed with Clarkia or fireweed or something. Cut damaged, leaning or other inauspicious specimens to allow vigorous trees room and safety to reach maturity. Protect desired midstory seedlings until they are tall enough to withstand the deer.

Choose a super steep location far from roads and ski resorts. Give it a good name like Frog Stench Glen or Thorny Pines or Mosquito Creek. Install a troll if you can find one. Plant lots of poison oak if it is in range.

I'd first look at natural situations where trees of your chosen species have survived that long and try to replicate it.

I remember reading that in order to have a shot at living to their maximum age, trees need to grow up fairly straight and well balanced, losing no major limbs. Major limb loss presents an easy avenue for rot and infections that can kill the tree very slowly and shorten its life, plus it makes it unbalanced and more likely to blow down in a big storm.

So I think the early years (first few decades) are very important, making sure that the trees incur no damage and allowing them to grow in accordance with their natural form.

Or you could go the complete opposite direction and grow them as a coppice (depending on your species), which I've been told can live indefinitely, as well as providing useful wood for 300 years.

Perhaps making the forest plot, or parts of it at least, productive would encourage its long term maintenance; motivate humans to continue to look after it. If you buy into that idea, daisugi may be relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisugi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Rk7DKPpbE&ab_channel=TheIgniteHub

A close friend has taken many decades to develop a relationship with trees that will produce Christmas trees and brush (eg, for wreaths) sustainably. He leaves healthy side-branches below where he harvests the trees, so the tree will adapt by turning the side growth upward. He then prunes over the course of years, planning likely next-to harvest tree, and maybe candidates for the next tree to grow, leaving a few more than needed (to allow for possible damage etc) from the root-stump.
A few local wreath-makers and others wanting (healthy, organic) brush come to the tree farm and collect the side-branches he prunes each year. No $ involved.
I've been reading a book on coppicing, which is a management practice with leaf-bearing trees. Coppicing can extend the life of a tree by giving it a smaller structure needing ongoing support, so it has more energy to produce new growth.
So my friend's methods use a similar harvesting from a tree's growth, leaving it a growing organism with less existing structure needing ongoing energy exchange with the roots. And ready to grow generations more of trees and brush ready for harvest.
He doesn't use any fertilizers or weed-killers, and refrains from mowing until after young birds have left their nests - so a few lucky customers get a tree with a nest in it (and the birds and other critters getting seasonal habitat).
He once sold wholesale and cut-your own, now only the latter. It's my sense he loves the community-weaving that occurs with his customers.

Sig Andersen wrote:A close friend has taken many decades to develop a relationship with trees that will produce Christmas trees and brush (eg, for wreaths) sustainably.

That sounds interesting. Do you have any pictures of your friend's property?

Talking about where you find big trees and some ways you can cut a tree a still have it: "Benches" and "Flats" are typical sites for big trees in steeper terrane with high gradient streams. In these benches there's soil with fines, sand and rocks with humus on top and the ground is less sloped. (hence "bench") Roots can reach water. Streams are associated with, and formative of, benches, There trees can anchor well and get big. But some species will regrow after being cut, which can be very handy
There's an organization called the BTCV, which is not a station, it's the "British Trust for Conservation Volunteers". They preserve 'cultural landscapes" historic parks, canals, you name it. Coppice, ie woodland of species that regrow from the roots (holly, chestnut, some oaks, white, black and Italian Alders (but not Red Alder) many Maples and a few conifers: Yew, Cypress, Redwood et al cut on short rotation. This yields wood for post and beam buildings, charcoal for smelting, Curved trunks to make ribs for ships from the Age of Sail, split rail fences, and basketry (which is typically willow coppiced on short rotation or small diameter hardwood split into strips) If you cut above the browse line of the local herbivores it is termed "Pollarding" ("Pollard Head" is my Nom de Plume, but describes the gnarly many mini-stumped structure that forms over time and produces similar material to coppice) Since the tree is not allowed to get old, it doesn't rot, starve the roots or fall and uproot. There is some coppice in England that probably furnished charcoal for smelting/maintaining and fabricating weapons and tools for the occupying Roman legions, etc. That's fairly sustainable, no? I believe the BCTV has established on-line purchase of online Handbooks. "Woodlands" is one, "Hedgerows" is another.

Jenny Wright wrote:

Sig Andersen wrote:A close friend has taken many decades to develop a relationship with trees that will produce Christmas trees and brush (eg, for wreaths) sustainably.

That sounds interesting. Do you have any pictures of your friend's property?

In response to Kris:

The oldest Ponderosa pine sampled was 933yrs. Bristlecone pines get over 4500yrs old (but not a timber species). White pines can get over 3000yrs. Giant Sequoia over 3200yrs (also not valuable as timber). Yellow/Alaska cedar get over 3600yrs. Western hemlocks can get close to 1000yrs. Coast redwoods grow trunks upwards of 2200yrs but their root systems are theoretically everliving (which is what the latin name Sequoia Sempervirens means). Western red cedar get over 2000yrs. Doug fir get over 1200yrs. Sitka spruce grow over 1000yrs, and these last four (coast redwood, red cedar, doug fir, and sitka spruce) are possibly the most valuable trees we can grow. They are all fast growing, grow exponentially more each year until near the end of their life span, and their wood is either light and extremely rot resistant (redwood and cedar), or stronger than steel by weight (doug fir and Sitka Spruce). In a coastal temperate area, these would seem to be the best bet for such a multi generational investment in my opinion. I would also mix in oregon white oaks or tanoaks, big leaf maples, California Bay, alders (initially, for nitrogen fixation and as part of forest succession), and madrone in such a coastal temperate climate. Coast redwood would be the best bet for anything resembling coppicing of a conifer.

Lots of grasses and other weeds are introduced and probably are partnered with non-native fungi and bacteria and that may be part of why some trees won't thrive with a thick understory, AND many native woody plants (like many pines- some of which won't release seeds until the cones are heated) are fire-adapted species so if fire is being suppressed they will be less likely to grow with a thick understory: they won't get started. Some woody plants' seeds won't germinate until heated: you put the seeds in a pan, scatter some dry straw on top of them and then flic yr Bic and give them a quick toasting, Then plant 'em. Talk about BIG trees- ever hear of the New Zealand Kauri called the Tane Mahuta? (they left one big one for the tourists. Kauris are kind of "broadleaf conifers" that are in the Sequoia range for "board feet per tree")

This is such an important topic.  I am not educated on the subject but respect very much those who are and offer something I wrote about a tree. I wrote it over a decade ago. Peace Jo

Sapping
    by Joanna Silva

If, thin as her branches were, having been cut and growing in a panic from the thick stubby pruned parts of her trunk, she might lift them slightly higher, hold, and reach - then her leaves, even all of them, even so frightened, twisted and hiding inside for too long, would feel warm light. They might wonder!

Today had been a sadly slight day. This truth she hummed all over while the dark world left behind the warm music she needed for the other which, when she wasn't well, confused her sometimes. Until the warm returned in the morning she maintained herself strong as she could, smothering, as the dark continued to be filled with more cold and noisy dark.

Her fresh stems and child branches were yet unable to wear her skin so she gave them her love but had to let them rest. Her worry over the smallest of them, only bright green nubs, ate at her most deeply reaching, ancient roots. She had to bring all of her together, they remembering high, while her warm loving parts remembered low, until her music received itself, even the thick stubs sprouting bunches of too many branches. She listened to every voice and they to each as well and this was her hum.

Through the night she took turns at care and rest. Mostly all woody parts of her looked within and held lovingly the ingrown leaves and sang a song she felt as beautiful, yet silent. She hoped it was so, and believed naively that it suffered nothing at all from her being a very worked, a very exhausted tree.

But she knew. She suffered. She could not heal herself rapidly enough to fend off the chattering parasites at her roots and around the ugly wounds.

Her magic left her each night like this after the song, as she embraced her children, as droplets of sweet fell. It was her best strategy to know her sap was a gift, even to the ones who ate her alive.

Dreams of sores grown over with rich dark wooden bark supporting sprouted branches become support for cities of birds, catching days and years of light with her choruses of leaves welcomed her to the morning.

Today, again, slightly higher.               ---- -by Joanna Silva apr2011

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I asked this question back in December and promptly forgot about it. But it has taken on a life of its own.

Ben Zumeta wrote:

Kris Winter wrote:Paths. Trees do not like you to step on their feet.

Thick substories for weed control--cherries, maples, oemleria, and shorter stuff like Oregon grape or snowberry under the midstory. Weedy grasses and annuals kill many long-lived trees. Even pines like bunchgrasses better, but pines can't live 1000 year. Which evergreens are you talking about?”

The oldest Ponderosa pine sampled was 933yrs. Bristlecone pines get over 4500yrs old (but not a timber species). White pines can get over 3000yrs. Giant Sequoia over 3200yrs (also not valuable as timber). Yellow/Alaska cedar get over 3600yrs. Western hemlocks can get close to 1000yrs. Coast redwoods grow trunks upwards of 2200yrs but their root systems are theoretically everliving (which is what the latin name Sequoia Sempervirens means). Western red cedar get over 2000yrs. Doug fir get over 1200yrs. Sitka spruce grow over 1000yrs, and these last four (coast redwood, red cedar, doug fir, and sitka spruce) are possibly the most valuable trees we can grow. They are all fast growing, grow exponentially more each year until near the end of their life span, and their wood is either light and extremely rot resistant (redwood and cedar), or stronger than steel by weight (doug fir and Sitka Spruce). In a coastal temperate area, these would seem to be the best bet for such a multi generational investment in my opinion. I would also mix in oregon white oaks or tanoaks, big leaf maples, California Bay, alders (initially, for nitrogen fixation and as part of forest succession), and madrone in such a coastal temperate climate. Coast redwood would be the best bet for anything resembling coppicing of a conifer.

I am thinking about the common evergreens of Cascadia west of the Cascades. Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Western redcedar and the like. Ben reminded me of Sitka Spruce, which makes up a lot of the driftwood on Washington's beaches. And those driftwood logs are so beautiful. I don't know why, but there is something inexpressibly wonderful about the looks of those smooth, light, straight, white logs after the sea has sanded them. And the tone, when you pick one up and drop it on another one! So we would definitely need some spruce in this grove.

I'm mostly wondering how I could convince people to respect this grove. Many people have called their groves sacred and convinced their neighbors to leave them alone because of that. There are many such places like the guardian forests in Japan and around churches in Ethiopia.

I think one of the most important things to do is to make it beautiful

Kris Winter wrote:Paths. Trees do not like you to step on their feet.

Protect water sources by building underground aqueducts. This will help keep the predator to deer ratio advantageous to the midstory and substory.

Hey Kris, that reminds me of two things. The first is the sad story of Klahanie Campground. Compressed, wet soil led to root rot which led to the closure of a campground. I had hoped that it might be opened again, but it seems that the land manager faces a choice between keeping 8 foot trees and closing it permanently.

This article about Water Collection for the Okanogan talks about qanats and other ways to use water underground.

Yew. Not big, but feeds the birds, grows in magical places and is used for bows in Europe and North America. And the women's camas digging sticks are yew wood. Not a conifer (technically, because it has single seed fruits.) I saw one ancient one that had a big fire scar (from a long ago fire)on the uphill side where burning debris probably was heaped against the trunk. The tree did not look like it was fazed in the least.

Another genus that's pretty scarce, but features long life, good size, quality timber (the choice for monster Zepplin propellor blades) and edible seeds, (on the train to Puerto Montt, Araucana women came on the train at a stop and sold us cooked seeds in small bags- VERY appreciated) So if you are on the West Coast (I first typed "Wet Coast" LOL) Araucaria araucana, or Monkee Puzzle. I don't know any planted groves of this in the Northern Hemisphere.

It does sound like pines can exceed 300 years. So that works for this thought experiment.

Rick, I know of a Monkey Puzzle grove! It is in the Hoyt Arboretum by the Oregon Zoo. There are also two Monkey Puzzle trees planted just south of the science buildings at Clark College.

I suppose arboretum managers would know a thing or two about setting up social systems to keep trees around for a long time.

Kris, I was an education ranger in old growth coniferous forests long enough to assume most people generalize the term "pine" for all conifers. It feels pedantic to correct a dozen people a day that what they are holding is a "fir/spruce/hemlock/redwood" cone. The Pinaceae family includes firs, spruce, cedars, and hemlocks. Coast redwoods are distantly related to pines (with a shared ancestor 100mil+ yrs ago), but are more closely related to cypress and cedars. The Pinus genus is more specific to what many call "pines", but still many people generalize all evergreen conifers as such.

Still, for this experiment, I would plant coast redwoods as well. Redwoods are being planted fairly extensively by some foresters in Washington State with climate change, unparalleled growth rates, and regrowth from burl sprouts and reiterations in mind. They were at one point native to what is now called Washington State, as they were pan-boreal for much of their species' history, and moved south with the anomalous ice ages of the relatively recent past.

I was mistaking what many call "white pine" with limber pine (which live up to 3000yrs, and are also called "Rocky Mtn White Pine"). I have seen a 1500yr old limber pine off of the PCT at Mt. Baden-Powell. Whitebark pine (1200+yrs) is another of multiple species of western pines that get called "white pine" colloquially. I have around 20 conifer species on my property alone. I can get them, especially the dozen or so pines, jumbled up in my memory. My latin name retention is also pretty poor.

On Jeremy's note about the sound of Sitka spruce, that is why one of my Makah musician friends prizes Sitka spruce for guitars! He had one made with Sitka Spruce and big leaf maple that had a wonderful sound and look. These types of high value, low volume uses for wood seem like ideal aspects of making such a long term project viable. In any forest, a majority of seedlings will die relatively young, so finding ways to utilize this wood that will help protect the rest of the forest will likely be important.

Another way to protect a forest site is to get future generations to love it and value the trees standing. Education centers, stewardship organizations doing trail maintenance, and even community theaters amidst the forest (like the one on Kitsap Peninsula) can help protect the trees. On the other side of the coin, one could also just spike the trees and make any harvest or milling unviable. This may harm their longevity though, and has its own ethical questions to consider.

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:It does sound like pines can exceed 300 years. So that works for this thought experiment.

Rick, I know of a Monkey Puzzle grove! It is in the Hoyt Arboretum by the Oregon Zoo. There are also two Monkey Puzzle trees planted just south of the science buildings at Clark College.

I suppose arboretum managers would know a thing or two about setting up social systems to keep trees around for a long time.

That's wild, I know they had a few when I was a Hoyt seed gathering volunteer and was developing a small bamboo section there. but it's been a few decades since I've been there. Yeah, for sure, there's lots of single trees. I've gathered seeds too, and purchased cooked seeds from Mapuche women who came onto the train to sell snack bags of them. I gotta go back to the Hoyt and check things out. I love the groves they planted with Dawn Redwood, Coast Redwood, and Incense Cedar (or was they Sequoias?) Anyway, small groves right next to each other so you can compare them. The Dawn Redwood was brought to the attention of Western Botanists by the same Yunnanese Forester who introduced Bashania Fargesia bamboo to the west. I was very happy when I met him at a Bamboo conference up at Ft Worden on Hood Canal and pleased to tell him that yes I was growing it when he told me about it. Cool dude. Now I'm almost as old as he was when I met him. Eugene has a few Araucarias that are well-established, including one on Skinners Butte where Eugene Skinner founded the burg.
Are you any relation to Roger Van Gelder? (old friend I haven't seen in at least 30 years)

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:I have this idea rolling around in my head. Wouldn't it be cool to try to grow a grove of trees until they reach 300 years old? To set up a system that loves and protects them for at least that long?

The love and protect part, particularly with our shifting weather patterns, will likely take study, determination, and creativity (and possibly a lot of money).

A number of suggestions made identify the need for the project to eventually be self-supporting. However, I've also read books about the need to recreate "natural" or "native" forests (there's a movement and I think it was started by a Japanese person, but it's been picked up by other people) because there are things those ecosystems do that may be critical to the planet. The long lived trees you're proposing, are part of an ecosystem, and it can be recreated and super-charged according to the reading I did.

However, as mentioned above, unless in some way it develops sacred status, protecting it for that long may be challenging. I would agree that making sure it was "challenging terrain" would help, but tree harvesting from helicopters is a thing.

Araucaria araucana has natural protection, and if I had access to seed, I'd be tempted to plant a whole row of them along one edge of my property! However, what I'm picturing with your plan is that it might be best to create groves inside a geographical area that will naturally protect the trees, ideally keep them "out of sight", and defend them with thickets.

Identifying them as "parks", with protection from authorities has not been effective in some areas of Canada. Yes - humans have been managing trees in North America for a very long time, so leaving "nature to itself" is not always good, particularly if cool fires were historically part of that management. However, I'm also aware of cash strapped governments deciding that the park *needed* logging to "improve" it. Humans have way too much tendency to put a price tag on trees. One result has been "industrial tree farming" with all the issues that any monoculture  creates and humans have proven recently, that they are very resistant to learning from other people's mistakes in that area. Another result has been to only value a tree if it will provide board feet, because letting it die a natural death and feed the soil is a "waste of money".

So I think that part of your plan may need to be *really* good at educating humans about why some things need to be done as a gift to Mother Earth, *not* because of a figure on the bottom line.

In this spate of reading about big trees I have encountered information about the church groves in Ethiopia. Apparently the goat infested badlands have substantial islands of old forest surrounding the churches! Here we have at least one "Cathedral Grove" but it could be very important to have Sacred Forests. I think I ought to spend a bit of time to explore the current state of places like Breitenbush Hot Springs, site of some important mushroom conferences (Paul Stametz participated, naturally) where there was a big fire a few years ago. (one friend died in it) and at least most of the buildings burned. We've had so many fires and I really want to see how the old growth has fared. Perhaps the crucial (which has "CROSS" as a root, eh?) question is how best to promote a reverence for these places amongst those who don't feel it (yet)? It's a big question, too, as to whether climate change should be addressed directly with introducing new species. I hunt petrified wood- fascinated with it's beauty, and here in the Middle Fork watershed of the Willamette above Eugene and Springfield OR, the most common petrified species seems to be a Dawn Redwood type.. If you want to see that tree wild you need to visit Yunnan Province of China, but back when it grew in Oregon naturally the climate was warmer. Yet, the Hoyt Arboretum has quite a few growing quite well, thankyou.

Rick Valley wrote:... the most common petrified species seems to be a Dawn Redwood type.. If you want to see that tree wild you need to visit Yunnan Province of China, but back when it grew in Oregon naturally the climate was warmer.

Am I remembering the geology correctly: the petrified wood was a result of volcanic eruptions? I think that was discussed on a video by the Nick Zentner (geologist with Central Washington University). If that's right, then yes, it was long enough ago to be before the last Ice Age?  (maybe - I'm not that good with geological time)

It's important to remember that once one starts to look on a Geological time frame, climate has changed, but also the positions of the continents relative to the planet has also changed, as have the ocean levels. 300 year old trees are just a blip compared to that.