A giant sequoia forest could soon be growing in a Detroit neighborhood. Arboretum Detroit, which owns and manages a system of parks in the Poletown East neighborhood, has plans to plant 200 giant sequoia trees on vacant land. The nonprofit has already planted about 20 of these fast-growing, carbon-eating trees around the neighborhood, but “we want to do a whole park,” said Andrew “Birch” Kemp, co-director and board president.

There are 100 sequoia seedlings planted at the organization’s nursery. The seedlings are watched over by one of the older sequoias. All 120 of the arboretum’s sequoias come from Archangel Ancient Tree Archive in Copemish.

“From the devastation of some of the worst pollution, they should be applauded,” David Milarch, founder of Archangel and a Detroit native, said of Arboretum Detroit. “We just provide the sequoias.” He estimates that, in 25 years, the seedlings will be 60 to 80 feet tall with trunks you can’t wrap your arms around.

Kemp picked them up last spring.“It was so hilarious, too, because we have a 2002 Subaru Outback and we were trying to fit 100 trees in there,” Kemp said. “They were successful in that effort and they were planted at the arboretum’s tree nursery. The hope is that the seedlings will be replanted at their permanent home by fall 2025. The arboretum is working to purchase the future forest land from Detroit Public Schools.” The city block is the former site of a school that has since been demolished.

After land is secured – whether it’s the school site or piecing together several parcels – the real work of park-building begins. That involves removing invasive species and trash, plus remediating the soil.“It’s like a sense of relief for the land,” Kemp said. New flora can be planted after the cleanup.

For this project, there will be 200 sequoias plus 200 native trees that would be interspersed.  The sequoias, particularly good at scrubbing pollution, would be planted more “upwind” on the heavy pollution side with the natives downwind.The 20 older sequoias are about 4-5 feet tall with one coming in at 9 feet, proving they can thrive in Detroit.

“It will be something you can see and approach. They are going to live and do well.It’s unclear why sequoias are doing so well in Michigan, a climate that would usually be considered too cold for these trees. The natural range is the Sierra Nevada mountains’ western slopes, which is much warmer and dryer. Propagating trees like sequoias and redwoods is important, Milarch said, because they sequester 10 times more carbon dioxide than other trees. Only 4% of the world’s redwood and sequoia forests survive today.”

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