The Heights I Want to Reach
When my grandmother was my age or perhaps even younger, she doesn’t remember exactly, she planted a larch. I think it’s a Japanese one, Larix kaempferii, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. I’d say it’s something between 12-15 meters high today. Both my grandmother and my grandfather, when he was alive, were quite interested in gardening and I think my mother and I have respectively taken it even further.
Not that far from my grandmother’s larch I have planted a Metasequoia glyptostroboides. It’s fairly exotic for Finland, but so far it has survived. It’s almost 3 meters high. I thought I had bought it from a garden center, but my database says it was from our local Botanical Gardens in Kaisaniemi. That might mean that it‘s from a better source, so it’s all good. The Botanical Gardens only sell very small plants, so it looks like it might actually have grown quite a lot since 2007 when my database claims I’ve planted it.
Larches grow quite tall, but I think Metasequoias grow faster, I hope I can one day see if it will ever catch up with my grandmother’s tree 🙂
HA
I'am a marketing and gardening professional and I plan to blog about garden photography (with an amateur’s perspective on it), gardens, plants, most things even vaguely garden related and garden trips around the world.
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2 Comments
Olli Wuokko
Hi Henrika! So you still have your Metasequoia living? I think that it might have been the same year that I got mine, if it was 2007, and it could be from the same garden center. My Metasequoia died about two years ago and it was about 3 meters tall that time. Couse of death was something to do with the root system as it was completely rotten when it pulled it up.
However, Metasequoia is one of the few plants that don’t have better or worse source in means of better hardiness as all the trees these days are from the few surviving individuals (probably now extinct from the wild) in China.
Great blog!
HA
Thanks (kiitos) Olli! Yes the Metasequoia is doing well, a few centimeters at the end of each branch has frozen a bit during some winters, but mainly it’s growing nicely and doing fine so far 🙂