Dawn Redwood Growth - Strategy??

[Chunky Trunks]

It does slow down the growth a little bit but if you don't prune the roots of ground growing tree, soon you will have very large roots. All the feeder roots will then be far away from the trunk. Depending on the species, you may have problems when you try to collect the tree and put it in bonsai pots.

I’ve seen these Dawn Redwood roots are on another level. Extremely vigorous

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Do you have any photos of the progress? Or some of your larger Dawn Redwood in large containers and how long it took them to reach that size? Really trying to dial in a few strategies and see what works best. Thanks

It’s been about 4 years now and all the redwoods, including the dawn are about 2” diameter last measured in fall. All started out at about 1/4 - 5/16” diameter. They undergone a couple of cut backs already.

Here’s a summer photo, sadly the dawn is behind a couple other trees, but two other redwoods are on either side of the zelkova. These all tend to caliper out in fall and early spring.

When up potting one also needs to do root work each time. Otherwise it’s an easy tree to ground layer.
The pots will fill with roots and the bottom half of these need to be sawn off each up pot too.

Half bare rooted and put bonsai soil on top last year. If you do this add a good deal of bark to the bonsai media to hold more moisture. It will boost growth.

Summer temperatures can be hard on the trees. It helps to give shade and even reduce foliage in late spring to reduce transpiration. .


cheers
DSD sends