East Kilbride - Redwood Drive (Lanarkshire)

1) Giant Redwood nos 11 and 12 counting from Left (North) to Right (South) - May 2007

2) A row of GIant Redwoods on Redwood Drive - May 2007

3) A Panoramic photo looking from the North "Ok they are quite small but I like to speculate what this view will be like in 100yrs!!"

I couldn't agree more Tam, hopefully it will have eighteen fantastic Redwoods seen for miles around! Tam says "I have found an abundance of Redwoods in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, believe it or not on Redwood Drive!! Walking home the other week I came across these 18 and this is what started me on this quest. I was walking home along an old path parallel with Redwood Drive and a 20ft perfectly conical conifer caught my eye. On closer inspection the soft spongy bark and foliage proved it to be Sequoiadendron giganteum. All in all I counted 18 of these little beauties varying in height from 8ft to max 30ft. They are planted along a redundant path which leads over an old railway bridge to an area of bogland and reeds where a lot of dog-walkers go. A few of the smaller ones are quite spindly and are competing in amongst overgrown hawthorn. There are 12 on the north side of the railway bridge and 6 on the south. No. 17 has been snapped but it has put up two good trunks which reach around ten feet tall, it would probably be 30ft if it had not had its top lopped off. In photo number 3 you can see Redwood Drive on the righthand side (West) of the photo and the East Kilbride to Glasgow Central Railway line runs from the left (East) straight to and under the redwood row. In photo number 2 if you look carefully you can just make out a huge sequoia towering over an industrial unit and all other trees in its vicinity."

Dawn Redwoods - May 2007

"Last but not least I need a bit of help to identify what may be Redwoods. I am pretty positive that they are Dawn Redwoods there are three of them on Redwood drive that have just begun to put out leaves in the past week, I did not really take note of these trees until after the leaves came out then they appeared much more conical hence attracting my eye. It was only after my interest was sparked the other week that I understood that there were such things as deciduous redwoods."

"I have attached a couple of photos and a close up of a twig, the leaves are in opposing pairs so that is what makes me think they are Dawn rather than Coast Redwoods. They are around the 20ft tall mark."

You are keeping me busy with your finds, which is great! A fantastic avenue of young trees on Redwood Drive, and I can confirm from the picture of the twig that the three young deciduous trees are Dawn Redwood. Well spotted! A couple of weeks later, Tam spotted even more Redwoods along this road. He says "It seems that Redwood Drive keeps coming up with the goods, my only excuse for not finding these earlier is that the street is about a mile long with good stretches of woods either side. Ok they are young, no more than 20-30yrs but I am happy to say that yesterday I found another 6 Giant Sequoias (max height 20-30- ft?) on Redwood Drive, AND 3 more Dawn Redwoods again quite young. So all in all that is 25 Giants and 6 Dawns on Redwood Drive. Thanks once again for supplying all the photographs and information, we value all contributions to the site, particularly those with such detail."