The Giant Sequoias of Pötzleinsdorfer Schlosspark

Every giant sequoia growing in Europe today is, at most, about 170 years old, because the species was not seen by Europeans until 1852 and not exported until 1853. That upper limit makes the two giant sequoias flanking the main entrance to Pötzleinsdorfer Schlosspark impressive for what they are not: they cannot be nearly as old as the palace park around them, which the Geymüller banking family began landscaping in 1801, decades before anyone in Europe had seen a sequoia seed. They were planted later, sometime after 1853, as one of the many exotic imports that Vienna's wealthy families competed to add to their English-style gardens once the species became available, a horticultural fashion sometimes called Wellingtonia mania. Two smaller sequoias grow between the pair near the entrance, part of the same planting. The park itself, one of Vienna's largest and least manicured, is known for long open meadows dotted with individual specimen trees rather than dense woodland, and the sequoias are its most conspicuous residents. Nothing else in the park comes close to their bulk or their soft, reddish, fibrous bark. No precise planting date or trunk measurement has surfaced for this specific pair, so their age here is bounded by what is known about the species rather than stated as documented fact.