Coast Redwood? ID

Ambientone

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It was sold to me as a coast redwood, but I’m curious, and not familiar with redwoods. It has hard foliage and rough bark. The needles remind me of a yew, but a bit harder. Any help is appreciated.
 

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zanduh

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coast redwood has yew-like leaves. The bark on coast redwood is rough and thick because it is virtually fireproof when old and tall.

I think based on the below as my foliage guide this is coast redwood.

847C726C-8A5B-42EB-B9C6-CD0F1C550557.png
 

Ambientone

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coast redwood has yew-like leaves. The bark on coast redwood is rough and thick because it is virtually fireproof when old and tall.

I think based on the below as my foliage guide this is coast redwood.

View attachment 324569
cool! I’ve never seen one before. I guess they’re pretty rare as bonsai?
 

BrianBay9

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These guys sell great redwood stock......http://mcbonsai.com/
 

LittleDingus

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If it's a redwood (it doesn't look quite right to me but could be the pictures) it will back bud easily. You'd want to chop it low so new buds can form a new trunk. You'd then apply bonsai techniques to make something more interesting and to your liking. Do you have a better picture of the base? More experienced bonsai growers than me can then help you decide if this tree has potential and options to proceed.

I think you have a bigger issue than that, though. You're profile says you're in zone 6. I'm in the Kansas City area...zone 6. I can't keep my coast redwood outside in the winter. Last winter I had 3 in a grow tent (my trees are much younger than yours) in my garage where I could keep them between 40 and 50F most of the winter. They were in a grow tent that kept the humidity above 50% and often up to 70%. The tent had some LED grow lights...probably too much as one of the trees was bleached tan all winter. The leaves were still supple and not dry but I thought for sure it was dead until it warmed enough to generate new chlorophyll.

Those 3 all did fine and are growing quite well this season. As a test, I kept a 4th tree inside in a bright exposure in my cool basement. It also survived but some of the foliage has damage from the dry air. After I moved it back out in the spring, the main trunk never really took off. The tree hasn't totally given up on it because there is some new growth but the tree decided to grow a new trunk instead. The new trunk is now taller than the original.

I can try and get some pictures tomorrow if you're interested. It's too dark to take any now.
 

LittleDingus

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It's hard to get good pictures of these guys, but here is my "two trunk" tree that I kept in the basement this past winter. My basement has several tall southeast facing windows. That was the only light it got. I had a thermometer/humidity meter in the room that hovered between 60-80F. It turns out tall windows that face the sun heat up small rooms very effectively! Who knew ;) Humidity trended in the 40% range over the humidity trays. I usually let the grow bag sit in a shallow layer of water.

By end of winter, a few smaller branches had died almost completely. Even today some of the winter damage is still there on the old growth.

20200823_091333.jpg

The shorter trunk on the left is last season's growth. Hard to tell from the picture, but there is new growth at the apex of that trunk and along a few of the branches. But not much :( The taller trunk on the right is all this season's growth. The tree clearly favored the new trunk!

20200823_091322.jpg

Larger/older trees are likely to have even more issues inside over the winter than my sapling did. They really do need cooler, more humid winters to rest in than is possible in most homes. But they also need warmer weather than winters are in zone 6. The coolest the one's in the garage got was upper 30F. Meanwhile, we had a stint of sub-zero temps here that I'm sure would have killed them outright.
 

Deep Sea Diver

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Hmm... Yep. That does look yew ish. Always ...
Looks like it’s been treated not so well and left in the hot sun alot.

Here’s what a couple of healthy Sempervirens look like right now.

One bottom of needles, two top.

Cheers
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