Coast redwoods.

There are three distinct species of redwoods commonly planted in Victoria.

1. Dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Thought to have been extinct for millions of years, the Dawn redwood was rediscovered in 1944 by a forester in the Sichuan-Hubei region of China.
2. Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) which grow into the most massive trees on Earth. The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park is probably the best well-known. They reach an average height of 50–85 m with trunk diameters ranging from 6–8 m. They are found in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California.
3. Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), also known as Californian redwood, can live up to 2000 years or more. They are the tallest trees on Earth, and the current tallest is the Hyperion, measuring 115.61 m (379.3 ft). By comparison, the tallest measured mountain ash (E. regnans) is named Centurion and stands 100.5 metres tall (330 feet) in Tasmania.

And while all three species of redwood are breathtaking to behold, the Coast redwoods are something special.

There are some significant individual specimens in both private and public gardens in Victoria. One of the most notable is outside the Bright Golf Clubhouse which was planted by the Forest Commission in 1923 when the site was a softwood nursery. And there are at least three large street trees around the township of Beechworth.

There were a few old Coast redwoods near the Forestry School at Creswick, but they were damaged or destroyed in the 1977 bushfires which swept the bush.

However, two small stands of Coast redwoods have become incredibly popular destinations over the last few decades.

Probably, the most well know was planted by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) in 1930. The site is about 8km east of Warburton on Cement Creek Road and has several species of softwoods including Coast redwoods.

It was established as a research plot to examine interception of rainfall by tree canopies and for comparison with native mountain ash forest in the Coranderrk area. There are over 1476 trees ranging in height from 20 metres to the tallest being 55 metres on an even 3.3 m grid spacing. The stand has not self-thinned like the one in the Otways and is not as tall.

It is believed that the seed came from England and the seedlings were raised at the Forests Commission nursery at Creswick.

The East Warburton stand can become packed with visitors on weekends, somewhat destroying the serene and eerie ambiance of the tall trees.

The second, and my personal favourite, is the experimental stand of Coast redwoods planted by the Forest Commission in 1936 in the Aire Valley in the Otways. I understand there were five other stands of Coast redwoods, but they are now gone.

The initial plot of 461 trees has thinned down to 220 stems since planting in 1936. Some have died, some have been struck by lightning, some have been removed or cut down, and others have fallen down. The planting rows, where trees were originally spaced at of 3.3 metres, are still visible.

The initial growth of the seedlings was disappointingly slow, but they are now about 60 metres tall (2004).

The Forests Commission built a camp next to the Aire Valley Redwoods in March 1948 which consisted of a cookhouse and mess, shower block, toilets, woodshed and eighteen small two-man Stanley Huts. It was used to house post-war immigrants and refugees who came from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The “Balts”, as they were known, had come to replant the degraded and abandoned farmland in the Otway Ranges which had been progressively purchased by the Commission for softwood plantations.

I’m also aware of two other smaller, and less accessible stands of Coast redwoods.  One known as the Magic Forest in the Stanley plantation near Beechworth, and the other is hidden in the bush between Toolangi and Narbethong.

It’s hard to know exactly what has triggered the incredible popularity of Coast redwood plantations in the last few years. Maybe it’s a quest by pouting influencers for that perfect selfie or Instagram photo. Or perhaps, it’s the latest trend of shinrin yoku, which is the ancient Japanese relaxation ritual of forest bathing.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/forestcommisionheritage/posts/3808045622555093

Photo: The Aire Valley redwoods were planted by the Forests
Commission in 1936 as an experiment. Photo: Peter McHugh 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwoods_of_the_Otway_Ranges