When Senior Park Ranger Maureen Beckman started patrolling Carbon Canyon Regional Park about five years ago, there was one thing she heard most often:

Don’t be the ranger who kills the redwoods.

Tucked into the south end of the park about a mile’s hike from the nearest parking lot is a three-acre grove of 242 coastal redwood trees – the tallest standing about 100 feet.

Nearly two years ago, with California in a severe drought and water rationed by local governments, the thirsty redwood trees were in peril.

Native to Northern California and Oregon, the redwoods were getting only about half the water needed to survive. Branches started losing their leaves, and the leaves that did remain were turning brown.

What a difference two years makes.

Looking up from the ground at a redwood at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Redwoods bring a splash of green to the hills of Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The trees are healthy again, thanks to a new watering schedule and the deluge of winter rains. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

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Maureen Beckman, a senior park ranger at Carbon Canyon Regional Park looks up to the higher branches of the redwood groves in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The recent drought wreaked havoc on the trees, which are not native to Southern California. A new watering schedule and maintanence has improved the health of the trees. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

A fenced-in path was added to the Redwood Grove at Carybon Canyon Regional Park in Brea. The fence keeps pedestrians from damaging sensitive tree sprouts. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Bark on a redwood at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)



Green needle leaves from a lower branch of a redwood tree at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Long, skinny branches shoot off from a redwood at Carbon Canyon Regional park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Redwoods bring a splash of green to the hills of Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The trees are healthy again, thanks to a new watering schedule and the deluge of winter rains. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

New tree sprouts grow toward the light at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Bark on a redwood at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)



Redwoods bring a splash of green to the hills of Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The trees are healthy again, thanks to a new watering schedule and the deluge of winter rains. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

New tree sprouts grow toward the light at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

A Cooper’s Hawk perches on a branch of a redwood tree at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Evidence of an older method of tree watering is still visible on one tree in the Redwood Grove at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea on Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Not only did the beloved trees survive, but they are now thriving with the help of a wet winter and adjusted watering schedule. No tree was lost and new sprouts are popping up at the base of many.

“My thought was they had been here for 40 years and I’d hate them to die. It’s an ongoing joke for whatever ranger gets here. You don’t want to be the ranger that kills the redwoods,” Beckman said. “We can always grow grass back. You can’t really replace a 40-year-old tree.”

With the entire park on a single water meter, one of the first things Beckman did was to reduce or eliminate the water being used in developed parts of the park.

Turf was ripped out of planters in favor of mulch. Grass on slope areas was no longer so green.

This allowed the rangers to turn the sprinklers back to running 25 minutes per-cycle for five-days-a-week to feed the redwood trees, which is what they were set at prior to the 24 percent mandated cut required by the city.

“What we have is a confirmation of what we are doing is working,” Beckman said. “We did go through that drought and it was pretty bad and our trees came out and I didn’t lose one. By just borrowing some water from there during the mandates helped. Making sure that this was our priority and that we were out here and checking on them.”

Besides the additional watering, the park has taken other steps to help the redwoods thrive, Beckman said.

A 4-inch thick layer of forest floor mulch is spread throughout the grove each year to retain the moisture in the roots. Buckets of earthworms were spread throughout the grove to help naturally turn the soil over.

A trail fence was also installed about three years ago to help keep hikers, and more importantly, people riding horses on the trail and away from the roots of the trees.

Beckman even had informational panels installed along the trail to show people in the grove how the massive trees are cared for and why the trees might not look like the evergreen ones they’ve seen in photos along the coast who are in their natural climate.

Brea’s grove sprouted in 1975. A local bank was giving away redwood saplings to new customers. The bank gave the extra to the county, which planted more than 200 as the grove.

Offshoots of the original trees have been re-planted and trees have been donated to the grove. The latest sapling was donated about three years ago. Beckman said a local man gave her eight saplings to plant. Of the eight, one survived and now stands about 3- to 4-feet tall.

The park is not in the business of taking in more redwood trees, Beckman said, and has turned away others offered.

“We shouldn’t’ be in the business of taking in more redwoods,” she said. “This is not their habitat, and we need to take care of the ones we do have.”

What Carbon Canyon Regional Park does have is the largest grove of such trees in Southern California. Trees that have survived numerous hot summers and dry winters for 42 years far from the damp air they love.

Some of redwoods still show signs of strain with bare branches and brown leaves, but more are showing signs of growth.

“It could be still too early to tell. It could be that one of the trees is now dying and we don’t know it yet,” Beckman said. “It might not be obvious to us and it could be by the end of the year we will have a dead tree, and it could had started with the drought.”

If you go

Carbon Canyon Regional Park

Where: 4442 Carbon Canyon Road, Brea

What: 124-acre park, about 60 of which is developed into recreational areas with picnic spots, sports fields and a 4-acre lake for fishing. There are trails for hiking, including to the redwood grove.

Hikes: Rangers lead hikes out to the redwood grove on the first Saturday of each month – the next is Aug. 5 – heading out at 8:30 a.m. Meet at the park’s nature center. Occasional night hikes are also planned

Parking: $3 weekdays, $5 weekends

More information