just got myself a dawn redwood bonsai forest
- Thread starter maverickheath
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maverickheath
Mame
Acorrding to the tag they are dawn redwoods
Leo in N E Illinois
The Professor
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@maverickheath - I really want to encourage you, I hope you stick with the hobby, and come to enjoy it as much as I do.
Botanically Metasequoia is fairly closely related to genus Sequoia, its a flower parts thing. Taxodium is not very closely related to these guys, flower parts are different.
Horticulturally, Metasequoia do indeed have many growth pattern habits that more closely resemble the habits of Bald Cypress. Adaptation to similar habitats.
So yes, the growth habits of Dawn Redwood do remind most bonsai growers of the growth habits of Bald Cypress. The bonsai techniques used on Dawn Redwood are more similar to the Bald Cypress techniques than the techniques used for Coast Redwood.
What to do with your forest. Since it was repotted, I would do nothing for at least one year. Let it grow. I'm glad that so far they have survive. In a month or so after you see new growth on the majority of the trees in your forest, move them from a shaded location to full sun. Keep them wet, keep them growing. Begin fertilizing after you see new growth starting.
Next year would be earliest you would do anything. In the mean time, read up, check Metasequoia threads on this forum and all the bald cypress threads for ideas.
If this forest were mine. I would have before the leaves appeared, separated the trees to individual pots. Grown and trained them for several years. Pick up a couple that are significantly larger and a few that are significantly smaller in trunk diameter. Train all with the goal of re-assembling the forest in a large shallow pot. Then possibly in 2018 or 2019 put them all together again. Once a forest is assembled, and the appropriate spacing between the trees has been set. The whole forest is repotted as a single unit. If you are happy with the spacing between the trees, you never separate them again. The goal is to have the root systems fuse into a single mass.
Hope this helps.
Botanically Metasequoia is fairly closely related to genus Sequoia, its a flower parts thing. Taxodium is not very closely related to these guys, flower parts are different.
Horticulturally, Metasequoia do indeed have many growth pattern habits that more closely resemble the habits of Bald Cypress. Adaptation to similar habitats.
So yes, the growth habits of Dawn Redwood do remind most bonsai growers of the growth habits of Bald Cypress. The bonsai techniques used on Dawn Redwood are more similar to the Bald Cypress techniques than the techniques used for Coast Redwood.
What to do with your forest. Since it was repotted, I would do nothing for at least one year. Let it grow. I'm glad that so far they have survive. In a month or so after you see new growth on the majority of the trees in your forest, move them from a shaded location to full sun. Keep them wet, keep them growing. Begin fertilizing after you see new growth starting.
Next year would be earliest you would do anything. In the mean time, read up, check Metasequoia threads on this forum and all the bald cypress threads for ideas.
If this forest were mine. I would have before the leaves appeared, separated the trees to individual pots. Grown and trained them for several years. Pick up a couple that are significantly larger and a few that are significantly smaller in trunk diameter. Train all with the goal of re-assembling the forest in a large shallow pot. Then possibly in 2018 or 2019 put them all together again. Once a forest is assembled, and the appropriate spacing between the trees has been set. The whole forest is repotted as a single unit. If you are happy with the spacing between the trees, you never separate them again. The goal is to have the root systems fuse into a single mass.
Hope this helps.
Rid
Shohin
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