What is the oldest tree in Inistioge?
Inistioge's best-known tree is the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in Woodstock Gardens and Arboretum, measured at 41.5 metres tall and 7.65 metres round at its base in 1999. It is roughly 150 to 215 years old.
The Irish Times reported the sequoia during the restoration of Woodstock's Victorian gardens in 1999 and called it the tallest tree in the park and the widest in Ireland. Woodstock's own page now gives Ireland's largest recorded giant redwood as 51 metres tall and 8.6 metres round, so the widest claim no longer stands. The girth was taken at the base, not at chest height. The national heritage tree register put the sequoia at 150 to 200 years in 2009, and the species reached Ireland only in the 1850s. The estate's champion coast redwood is one of two in the arboretum, about 67 metres apart, and nobody has published which. The tree is older looking and twisted, and two stately Wellingtonias stood almost 40 metres tall nearby in 1999. No newer measurement has been published since. Woodstock is run by Kilkenny County Council, entry is five euro per car, and the gardens close whenever a yellow, orange or red weather warning is in force.
One of Inistioge's trees also appears in The Tallest Trees We Have Measured.