Purchasing a redwood/young redwood care

[nekobes]

Hi all, I'm quite new to this hobby and would like any advice or input anybody is willing to give me. In fact, as of now, I haven't styled, nor do I yet plan to style, any trees. For the time being, I'm only interested in growing young saplings to raise in the coming years, while reading up on some general basic bonsai knowledge to apply when those trees are ready.

With that in mind, there are two young redwood seedlings I am interested in purchasing to grow for the next few years before attempting to train them into bonsai. One is a ~26" tall Dawn Redwood, the other is a ~12" tall Coast Redwood. From what I've read so far, the Dawn is more common in bonsai applications and is a bit more hardy. However, I personally find the Coast a bit more visually appealing when mature. More importantly, how should I go about raising either one of these trees so that they can be trained into bonsai in the future, from the stages in development they are each currently in? I'm not particularly interested in buying a mature, pre-styled redwood; I would much rather get a young plant that I can have the experience of growing myself and styling when we are both ready.

If anybody can give me advice on how to care for these trees from their present state, or direct me towards resources about the subject, I would be greatly thankful.

 

[GreatLakesBrad]

Two great trees.

My thoughts from zone 6a:

Dawn redwood: not much if any winter protection needed regardless of whether it’s in a pot versus planted in the ground. Grows like a weed. Heavy pruning or repotting: springtime at bud swell is best. Very upright growth habit. Loves moisture and takes more water to keep happy than most in my garden during summer months.

coast redwood: going to be tricky with winter. Here in 6a, I have been growing a few in 3 gallon pots or expanded training containers to thicken up. I bring them inside when temps drop below 40F. Grow lights for the winter has worked for me thus far, but ideally I will have a greenhouse/cold frame that doesn’t drop below freezing in the future, so that the tree can experience a more natural winter dormancy cycle. I bring them back outside once temps hit 40F in spring, always protecting from frost (this means two stepping in and out during spring months) and so the tree seems to experience March/April as its winter dormancy, and starts growing again in May typically.

One option could be to purchase a few Anderson flats, or any larger training containers, to being thickening up the trunk. With the Dawn in particular you will need to prune sooner than later - if planting the Dawn in the ground it will soon be much taller than you.

love the fall color on my Dawn, and the deciduous nuances - but certainly you cannot beat a coastal redwood.

My two cents, cheers.

 

[nekobes]

Thanks very much for all of this. I think I may go with the Dawn and hold off on the Coast until I have a few winters under my belt. If you don't mind me asking a few more questions, what kind of soil do you recommend potting the tree in, and should I hold off repotting until early spring?

Thanks again for the help

 

[Lorax7]

Coastal redwoods can handle some freezing temperatures. What they really struggle with in winter is drying out too much when the rootball is frozen for a long duration. I forgot and left mine out all winter one year (5b Michigan winter). The tree survived but it lost all the branches on the upper 3/4 of the trunk that year. It pushed out new branches that spring and went on growing with a surprising amount of vigor, considering what it had just been through, but of course I wouldn’t want to repeat that. I have kept it indoors all winter except for that one year when I forgot. It seems to be fine without experiencing a winter dormancy.

Here it is in the spring following the winter it spent outside:


Here it is this year right after I did a trunk chop, trimmed, and wired it again in July (it has already backbud like crazy and put out enough branches that you can’t really see much of the trunk):


The main things to know about them are:

1. They love water.
2. They are really vigorous growers.
3. They grow straight and tall in nature, so formal upright is the style that looks most like the full size trees do in their natural environment.

 

[Eric H]

While they are growing, buy cheap junipers and go to town!

 

[nekobes]

While they are growing, buy cheap junipers and go to town!

thats certainly the plan. give the big guys some time to grow, while learning and practicing pruning/wiring/etc in the meantime

 

[nekobes]

Two great trees.

My thoughts from zone 6a:

Dawn redwood: not much if any winter protection needed regardless of whether it’s in a pot versus planted in the ground. Grows like a weed. Heavy pruning or repotting: springtime at bud swell is best. Very upright growth habit. Loves moisture and takes more water to keep happy than most in my garden during summer months.

coast redwood: going to be tricky with winter. Here in 6a, I have been growing a few in 3 gallon pots or expanded training containers to thicken up. I bring them inside when temps drop below 40F. Grow lights for the winter has worked for me thus far, but ideally I will have a greenhouse/cold frame that doesn’t drop below freezing in the future, so that the tree can experience a more natural winter dormancy cycle. I bring them back outside once temps hit 40F in spring, always protecting from frost (this means two stepping in and out during spring months) and so the tree seems to experience March/April as its winter dormancy, and starts growing again in May typically.

One option could be to purchase a few Anderson flats, or any larger training containers, to being thickening up the trunk. With the Dawn in particular you will need to prune sooner than later - if planting the Dawn in the ground it will soon be much taller than you.

love the fall color on my Dawn, and the deciduous nuances - but certainly you cannot beat a coastal redwood.

My two cents, cheers.

Thanks very much for all of this. I think I may go with the Dawn and hold off on the Coast until I have a few winters under my belt. If you don't mind me asking a few more questions, what kind of soil do you recommend potting the tree in, and should I hold off repotting until early spring?

Thanks again for the help

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Dawn redwood seem pretty forgiving when it comes to soil type. I've grown them in nearly pure pumice. A bark-pumice-turface mix. A turface-bark mix. Akadama-pumice mix. Pure Akadama. Pure Kanuma, garden soil, potting soil, just about any old s**t you have laying around. Key is to keep them wet. They love water. But I do not stand mine in water except for the hottest month or two in summer. That is just to keep it from drying out when I'm not looking. I have to take regular 2 night trips away from home. I use the same mix I use for my deciduous currently. Currently I use Akadama, with some (less than 50%) pumice. That is my current mix. But they will grow in just about anything. I do sift my mix to eliminate fines to have a well oxygenated mix.

Dawn redwood closely resembles bald cypress in its ability to tolerate flooded situations. Since it was almost extinct when "discovered" by western horticulture it is not clear if it is only found in flooded situations in the wild. Photos of Dawn redwood lining flooded river banks in China do exist.

The redwood family has 3 species -Sequoioidaea sub-family
Sequoia sempervirens - the coast redwood
Sequoiadendron giganteum - the giant redwood of the Sierra Nevada, in EU called Wellingtonia,
Metasequoia glyptostroboides - the dawn redwood

Also 3 genera in the very closely related genera in Taxodioideae which is the bald cypress sub-family. One species in each in 2 genera, 3 species in Taxodium. 5 species total.
Glyptostrous pensilis - Chinese swamp cypress - seems to look like a bald cypress, seems to tolerate flooding, planted at edges of rice paddies.
Taxodium distichum, T. mucrononatum and T ascendens - our NA bald cypresses (yes, I include Mexico in North America)
Cryptomeria japonica -Sugi, Japanese cedar, Japanese redwood.

The above 8 species are the most "redwood like" or the most closely related to the redwoods, including the 3 true redwoods, and 5 bald cypress subfamily.

Remember, in bonsai appearance is everything, genetics of a tree do not matter. Upright junipers can be trained to look like very convincing small scale "redwoods" for example look at John Naka's creation "Goshin", which looks very much like a stand of Sierra Redwoods, yet was done with garden cultivars of junipers. Juniperus chinensis. The Japanese cryptomeria has been used as bonsai for hundreds of years. It can make a nice "redwood like" image. Both are easier to grow than Sequoiadendron and Sequoia.

Dawn redwood is very easy to grow, In my opinion easier than bald cypress in the northern states. It is very cold tolerant.

Photo is John Naka's "Goshin" image from 2015, taken from Danny Coffee 's Bonsai Blog. At this point in time 'Goshin" had been assembled as a bonsai for approximately 55 years, as John Naka put it together in the 1960's. So remember, appearance is what counts, Juniper or redwood doesn't matter, as long as the "spirit" says "redwood".

 

[Bonsai Nut]

FWIW I didn't see it mentioned here...

Dawn redwood is deciduous
Coast redwood is not

The first time I saw a dawn redwood dropping its foliage, I thought it had died

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

FWIW I didn't see it mentioned here...

Dawn redwood is deciduous
Coast redwood is not

The first time I saw a dawn redwood dropping its foliage, I thought it had died

I thought so too. LOL.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

While they are growing, buy cheap junipers and go to town!

Dawn redwoods at least up north, grow quite rapidly, and will grow MUCH faster than Junipers. The redwoods, in ideal climates (northern California) do grow quite rapidly, I would not claim a juniper could beat a redwood in speed of growth.

You should try growing them side by side, juniper, sequoia, sequoiadendron and metasequoia and see who wins the race in your climate. In my climate, metasequoia would win hands down.