Giant Sequoia Redwood Landscape Tree and Bonsai Nursery
This website is dedicated primarily to the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which is also known as the sierra redwood. This site is sponsored by Welker’s Grove Nursery in Auberry, California. The nursery can be reached by phone at 559.349.0081. Welker’s Grove Nursery is located in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains of California near ancient groves of giant sequoias. Our location is a key to our ability to study the giant sequoias in the wild as well as in the nursery and in the landscape garden. Our experimentation and observations over the last 20 years has helped to dispel myths with regard to the giant sequoia species. We are happy to share what we have learned. It is our mission to spread this magnificent species around the USA and to the world.Information on the growing and care of giant sequoia trees for use in the landscape garden and techniques specific to giant sequoia bonsai can be found within the About Sequoias page.
Please visit our Gallery to view pictures of domestic giant sequoias growing in many states of the USA and in many other countries. If you know of a giant sequoia growing in your area, please send a digital image to joe@giant-sequoia.com. Please include the city or county and state where the tree is growing. Any history or additional point of interest concerning the tree would be welcome. The trees don’t have to be old or big to qualify. Our goal in showing these photos is to dispel the myth that giant sequoias only grow in California. We will include a free giant sequoia seedling to anyone who provides us with a useful image of a domestic giant sequoia tree from a state that is not yet represented in our gallery. We also will send a seedling to the contributor of a better image of a giant sequoia tree from a state that is already represented in our gallery. We define a domestic tree as one that has been planted by man and not one growing in the wild. Photos of giant sequoia bonsai are also welcome.
The most commonly asked questions are answered on the FAQ page. If you have further questions or comments, please use the E-mail Us tab on the upper right of each page.
Please visit our online store where you may choose from an assortment of sierra conifers and deciduous trees that we have for sale. The store usually contains giant sequoia, coast redwood, dawn redwood, sugar pine, jeffrey pine, ponderosa pine, incense cedar, white fir, douglas fir, red sunset maple and western redbud seedlings or saplings year round. The buyer of a giant sequoia landscape tree will receive the actual tree that is pictured in the photo. Many of the landscape trees have an identification number so you will receive the specific tree of your choosing. We also have an assortment of giant sequoia bonsai trees to choose from.
The botanical name of the giant sequoia is Sequoiadendron giganteum. Giant sequoias are the most massive tree species on earth. The genus sequoiadendron can be traced to the Triassic Period of 200 million years ago. The giganteum is the only surviving member of the sequoiadendron genus. The sequoiadendrons were the dominant trees in North America and Europe from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous. They reigned from 180 to 35 million years ago. The sequoiadendrons then began to recede in favor of species that were better adapted to a cooler and dryer earth. Today they grow wild in only the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. There the ancient species found a refuge where the conditions remained favorable to their continued existence.
The conditions that the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada’s found favorable are many. The Sierra Nevada Mountains crest at around 14,000 feet in elevation. The crest runs from northwest to southeast in central California. The eastern slope is very steep and rocky. The western slope declines in elevation more gradually toward the west to the central valley of California. The western slope is rocky in most places but yet has places with deep enough soil to sustain large trees. The mountains are made of granite that was thrust up to the height of 14,000 feet above sea level at the crest through geological forces. The granite is fractured allowing water from the significant snowmelt to travel on a downhill journey not only on the surface of the stone in streams but also underground through crevices or fissures. The giant sequoias are found at the 7500 to 4700 feet elevations of the western slope. The sequoias only grow in limited areas called groves. Sequoias are not found growing throughout the Sierra’s. Only the groves have the unique conditions necessary for the survival of the giant sequoias. There the soil is deep and rich and is virtually always moist. The groves are naturally irrigated with springs of cold clear water flowing from the crevices or from streams. The water can empty onto the surface from a crevice, in the form of a spring, in a grove and flow as a stream through the grove and then, in the summertime dry season, disappear back into the earth as the stream exits the grove. There is also undoubtedly a labyrinth of fissures carrying water that open below the surface of the soil within the groves. A hiker in the Sierra’s will encounter mostly dusty trails. As he enters a grove the dusty trail turns into a trail of moist earth. Beyond the groves the trail once again turns dusty. There the soil is dry and cannot sustain the giant sequoias. This elaborate and remarkable natural irrigation system has allowed for the equally remarkable survival of this ancient species.
It is fascinating to consider that the giant sequoias shared the earth with dinosaurs. In fact the sequoias originated before the dinosaurs and have outlived the dinosaurs by 70 million years. It is truly remarkable that in our world today remains such a relic of ancient life on earth. There is no other tree species on earth that even compares in mass to the giant sequoia just as there is no animal on earth today that compares in mass to the largest dinosaurs. In those ancient days of dinosaurs and huge trees the earth was more fertile. Plants and beasts grew to enormous size as they fed on the abundance of a rich and fertile earth. The fact that one enormous specimen from those ancient days of the dinosaurs remains to this day is truly a marvel.
Thank you and please enjoy our website,
Joe Welker
Package containing 2 giant sequoia landscape trees
Giant sequoia landscape tree with personalized gift card
Welcome to the Welker's Grove Nursery website.
Our 2008 crop of dawn redwood seedlings are now available in the store.
We now have a redwood sampler package with a giant sequoia redwood, coast redwood, and dawn redwood.