FAQ

Our mission is to plant and protect 100,000 Giant Sequoias across the UK creating The Great Reserve - a life raft for the future survival of Giant Sequoias, currently on the IUCN Endangered Species Red List in their native California habitat.

To our clients we commit to the following:
i) We buy the land we plant on - this makes up a large proportion of our costs - and is the only way we can truly ensure the protection of the trees in perpetuity.

ii) To maintain the trees for their natural lifetime. A large proportion of our pricing is the future provision for the maintenance of the forests.

iii) To replace any Giant Sequoias that fail to survive.

iv) To plant c.20 other trees for each Sequoia at our forests, three of which will be native trees, the others are there as nurse crop trees for frost and wind protection.

v) To report on the growth and success of the Sequoia trees using LIDAR scans every five years, and to publish a register of GPS coordinates for each tree to ensure transparency of ownership.

Plant your very own Giant Sequoia(s) and start a multi-generational carbon neutral legacy - grown and protected as part of The Great Reserve - 100,000 Giant Sequoias planted in the UK to protect the future of the species, currently on the IUCN Endangered Species Red List in their native US habitat.

What’s included:

Giant Sequoia Sapling

100m2 plot of land per Sequoia tree

20 additional trees planted in proximity to support healthy growth & biodiversity, and protection from frost and wind

Planting experience day (optional)

Forest stewardship and maintenance

A guarantee to replace the Sequoia in case of non-survival

Engraved wooden plaque to tree coordinates, patron name, and planting date

150 year growth tracking using LIDAR scans and software

Our Sequoia trees can be purchased as a single unit or in multiple units to create a larger grove.

You are welcome to come and plant your Sequoia tree(s) in person (optional). Planting dates are made available within 6 months from purchase. Watch our Planting Days video below for what to expect.

Once the tree has been planted a personalised engraved wooden plaque can be sent out (8-12 weeks after planting) complete with tree GPS / W3W coordinates. Digital carbon offset certificates available on request.

When you sign up as a Giant Sequoia Patron you will be invited to come and plant your tree on one of our planting days. If you are unable to plant yourself a member of our team will do it for you. Thereafter you will be the registered owner and be provided with a certificate with the tree(s) coordinates included.

Conditions on the site mean that visiting your tree is recommended between late October and early April, as outside of those months the overgrowth makes access almost impossible. We ask that while the trees are young (0-10 years) that visitors stay on the footpaths at all times and not venture into the planted area, as damage to young trees can happen very easily.

Please always let us know if you plan to visit by emailing us at team@thegreatreserve.org

Each Sequoia is planted in its own 100 m2 plot (about the size of a 2 bed apartment) together with c.20 other nurse crop 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 recommended to us 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 education sessions to local schools to help with environmental awareness and learning.

Each $20 / £15 contribution buys 1/100th of a Sequoia tree- equivalent to one tonne of CO2 removal - the same as an average person’s monthly carbon footprint.

If you make it up to 100 contributions over time we will upgrade you to a full Giant Sequoia Tree Patron, with your own dedicated Giant Sequoia within The Great Reserve, with all the added extras mentioned.

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 sequoias from wind and frost damage.

We ensure we own the land the Sequoias are planted on to control the site. Furthermore once we have reaached our goal of planting 100,000 Sequoias we intend to incorporate a foundation/charity to become the steward of the trees for their remaining 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.

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 removal is audited and verified by the Soil Association on behalf of 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 removal) 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 with a clear allocation of each Sequoia tree to its respective owner.

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.

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 - witnessed as worsening wildfires and extended periods of drought.

Since the Victorians started bringing over and planting Sequoias in the 1850’s, the UK 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.

Our best example of Giant Sequoias growing in the UK are the RFS site in Leighton, Wales. These were planted from 1853 onwards as a combination of Coastal Redwoods and Giant Sequoias.

We have planted groves in Hampshire, Abergavenny and Brecon. Our current planting site is near Abergavenny in Wales.

In order to future proof our groves from drought we now only plant in locations with 1 meter or more rainfall per annum. Future locations under consideration are Devon, Lake District, and Scotland.

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.

Forecasted carbon capture (incl. additionality) per Sequoia tree over 150 years is 112 tonnes, however over their extended lifetime this can be far exceeded. The world’s largest Giant Sequoia, General Sherman, has removed closer to 1400 tonnes of CO2 over c.3000 years.

We grow all our own saplings from seed in partnership with a select few professional UK nurseries familiar with the Giant Sequoia species.

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