Santa Fe's Sequoia

La Secoya de la Paseo

I work downtown Santa Fe these days and a new construction development just north of the federal court house caught my attention in that it will be named after a sequoia tree on the property - La Secoya at El Castillo. Well, I had no idea sequoia trees grew in this climate or at this altitude. I was doubtful and almost didn't believe the veracity of the story. Newly armed with where to look as well as direct empirical observation of this marvel of a tree I'd quickly become quite saddened that this woody unicorn was marked to be 'relocated' and quite likely badly damaged and ruined. A treasure so newly discovered, condemned to a dishonorable fate.

This monument of a tree stands as tall as a mature ponderosa, easily 60ft. Its canopy branches out in a broad and symmetric olive-green triangle, a jurrasic yuletide douglas fir. There's no such thing as uprooting and relocating something so massive - or so I thought. While reading more about this tree I see that the company employed for this relocation project is out of Texas. I'm thinking - they've contracted with an out-of-state vendor to move/kill a giant tree (?) - the cost behind this work can't possibly be justified in the business plan for a senior assisted living center, just doesn't add up.

There's more. This company out of Texas has moved larger trees - larger sequoia trees. Most recently a 110ft jewel in Boise, Idaho. The process is extravagantly expensive. I'm startled by the need to take on such a cost and equally impressed that a Board or management team has signed off on all of this. A moat is to be dug around the tree, then a steel bracing will be installed at this sub-surface level and the soil mass is then to be bound with burlap material and wire for transport. It's then lifted/floated on several inflatable pods and rolled to its new location, in this case 60ft to the edge of the lot, flush along the north boundary of Paseo de Peralta.


Over the course of this week I've watched as this process unwound just as the description above. My pessimism also worked and revised toward optimism. The day-to-day has been fascinating. In the long run we all die, however what we do while living will be the measure of our worth.

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