Coastal redwood as a candelabra advice

[anon user]

Last fall I bought a set of coastal, dawn and giant redwood yearlings. The others are still alive and I think I know what I'm going to do with them. The coastal redwood is turning into an interesting case...

I received the trees in October. I kept the coastal inside under lights in a bright window for the winter...it was a test tree. I wanted to learn about it a bit before I ordered some more. It's winter requirements are tricky for me to meet: too cold to winter outside, possibly to dry in the house to winter inside.

Well, this one survived inside...and started actively growing around late February! It's growth was a bit strange, however. It grew OUT but not UP. The former apex stunted and it made long horizontal branches.

Fine. It lived. When it got warm enough I moved it outside.

Whelp, here we are early August. It's grown significantly in size, but wider. Not taller!

The top of the main trunk is ~6" above the soil line. From that point there are 7-8 branches fanning out in all directions. There do not appear to be any buds wishing to continue the main trunk's progress. Instead, 2-3 of the branches are now starting to curl up to become new trunks. They reach out about 8-10" from the main trunk before they start to curl up.

So, I'm envisioning a candelabra style! Not a Menora, with all the trunks in a nice row...which is what I usually see for candelabra style, but more of a chandelier type candelabra with trunks growing to different heights to provide visibility and interest.

So now my questions...which will demonstrate some of my ignorance with this species!

1) How aggressively will the tree be trying to get back to a single dominant trunk? If I turn the tips of 7 branches up, will the tree abandon 4 of them? 5? 6?

2) How far horizontal am I likely going to be able to make a branch before turning it vertical? I'd like to wire them out ~12" before turning them up if I can to preserve space in the center.

3) How much "up" do I need in a branch for it to have enough foliage to make enough hormone to continue to reach up?

4) Is there anything I can do to encourage multiple trunks besides turning up the branch tips? More fertilizer? Less? More wind to stimulate hormone production? Angling the horizontal part of the branch up/down from true horizontal? Usually when I see multiple trunks on conifers, the branches go out from the main trunk a bit before turning upward it seems. Or is that selection bias on my part?

My thinking is to wire 5 of the branches to go out and up and just see what happens, but before I go through all that, I'd love to hear what ideas the think tank has

Remember this tree was a test/sacrifice tree to begin with. It may not survive its second winter. I need to adapt last winters plan to the larger size tree. However, I would like to jump on this opportunity to try for a candelabra style! My long term goal for one of these is a raft off a fallen trunk but I've always enjoyed finding multiple trunk trees in nature so if I can possible start one now...why not?

 

[hemmy]

Well, this one survived inside...and started actively growing around late February! It's growth was a bit strange, however. It grew OUT but not UP. The former apex stunted and it made long horizontal branches.

Fine. It lived. When it got warm enough I moved it outside.

Late Feb. is when mine start growing outside. I’m surprised you had the humidity to keep it happy indoors with forced air heating. But I’m more surprised that it survived a Kansas summer! Did you do anything special outside (e.g., shade cloth, misters)?

That is an odd growth pattern. I wonder if it is a result of low light conditions indoors, but I would have expected it to get more apically dominate outdoors. There are “prostrate” varieties:

Sequoia sempervirens 'Yurok Prince' | Landscape Plants | Oregon State University

landscapeplants.oregonstate.edu

It looks healthy, but doesn’t appear to have any vigorous scale shoots that you see on upright growing branches. Again, maybe a result of lower light conditions or just a lot of lateral branches competing for resources.

Scale vs frond http://www.flowersociety.org/Redwood-profile.htm

 

[hemmy]

1) How aggressively will the tree be trying to get back to a single dominant trunk? If I turn the tips of 7 branches up, will the tree abandon 4 of them? 5? 6?

My guess, if you turn multiple up, you will need to balance their strength to keep one or more from becoming dominant. Balance meaning keeping foliage mass even. Given equal resources they should all complete to become the new leader.

 

[hemmy]

2) How far horizontal am I likely going to be able to make a branch before turning it vertical? I'd like to wire them out ~12" before turning them up if I can to preserve space in the center.

Shouldn’t matter, although shorter horizontal and more vertical will probably impact vigor. Just keep the final silhouette in mind.

3) How much "up" do I need in a branch for it to have enough foliage to make enough hormone to continue to reach up?

A few to several inches. When I want a branch to thicken, I try to generate branching and foliage mass with pinching, but also by wiring up a sacrifice of a few inches.

 

[hemmy]

4) Is there anything I can do to encourage multiple trunks besides turning up the branch tips? More fertilizer? Less? More wind to stimulate hormone production? Angling the horizontal part of the branch up/down from true horizontal? Usually when I see multiple trunks on conifers, the branches go out from the main trunk a bit before turning upward it seems. Or is that selection bias on my part?

They can use a lot of fertilizer when growing vigorous. But they are so vigorous, I only use organic and timed after spring to try and manage growth on established plants trying to get into ramification. You may need to wire them up on more of angle if the up-turned shoots don’t get the vigorous scale growth. Then maybe pull the “arm” back horizontal once you have the vertical portion growing strong. I think good light will also be a factor.

 

[hemmy]

My thinking is to wire 5 of the branches to go out and up and just see what happens, but before I go through all that, I'd love to hear what ideas the think tank has

I think a convincing candelabra design should still be compressed laterally to show the long trunk/height of the species. A raft might be a great option for this tree. But you could also play with that form, making it lean on a large rock and raft/candelabra from a 45deg trunk.

Look at what Bob Shimon and others do with non-upright, non-traditional forms for inspiration. If this one survives for you, I predict you going to get way more since it is such an addictive species to grow. Good luck!

 

[anon user]

Late Feb. is when mine start growing outside. I’m surprised you had the humidity to keep it happy indoors with forced air heating. But I’m more surprised that it survived a Kansas summer! Did you do anything special outside (e.g., shade cloth, misters)?

I order a "set" of redwood yearling plugs last October. I've grown dawns before. It arrived leafless so I potted it in a 4" pot and stuck it in the garage for the winter...watered minimally once a week or two so it wouldn't dry out.

The coastal and sequoia also went into 4" pots...big box potting mix for all. They both went under a 12" square red/blue LED panel on a shelf that's in a tall south window. I know what the manufacturer claims for ppfd but I only have a lux meter. Panel only I get ~20klux at 6" which is where the tip of the tree foliage was at first. Under full sun I would sometimes read over 50klux at the same spot. Lights were on 12 hours. I get full sun through that window maybe 3-4 hours per day.

I did have a mini cool water humidifier but I rarely used it. My humidity meter on that shelf typically measures 35-40% in the winter. I'm not sure how much the humidity matters to young trees though. Old trees need high humidity and fog to supplement water they can't move up to the great heights the trees grow. My tree was only 12" tall and kept in well watered peat. I imagine it was more in danger of rot than dehydration!

In early spring I moved it outside. Until the picture above, it was on the west side of the house where it got full sun from ~2pm on. I was very worried about being in full sun during the hottest part of the day, but I couldn't move it to the other side of the house until some deck work got done. Now it's on the east side and gets full sun until maybe 4pm then is shaded by the house the rest of the day. It's pretty normal for us to have 80%+ humidity with that heat. The past few weeks it's cooled down enough at night that everything is wet in the morning. Some mornings we can't see out the windows for all the dew.

The tree is clearly reacting to stress. My guess is that it was close enough to the LED panel that it got too much blue and not enough IR and that stunted the apex bud. I have some dawn redwood seedlings under the same panels now and one of them is looking to do the same thing. It has 2 apex buds that refuse to elongate directly under the panel and a long branch that is reaching the edge of the panel that's starting to turn up and act like a new apex. These panels put out 0 IR and our windows are thermal coated so I doubt much IR comes through them either. Just my guess.

As mentioned, this was my test tree. In the spring I ordered a few more redwood "sets" that act more normal. Here are one each of (left to right) dawn redwood, coastal redwood and sequoia. These were also yearling plugs when I got them. These are in 75ish% 8822, 20ish% coarse coconut coif and topped with 5ish% worm castings.



This winter the dawns and sequoias will be sheltered against the side of the house to be brought into the garage if we get an ice storm (I had an 8' dawn with a 4" trunk that I had for years outside in IL that survived winters fine here until one year we had a bad ice storm that killed it Not looking for a repeat!) I just ordered brighter LEDs and a grow tent to try out for my tropicals for the winter. Depending on how that looks when they arrive, I might get a smaller tent for the garage to winter the coastals. The garage generally stays above freezing. LEDs don't give off a lot of heat, but even 100w in an enclosed space heats up significantly. I imagine with the right venting I can sustain 50 degrees with bright light and higher humidity...should be good enough to get through the few months the trees can't be outside anyway. If not...eh...it's a hobby, I'll try something else

...also, cause this is not long enough, I've learned the biological name for "candelabra" is "reiteration" The redwoods and bald cypress (close relative) are good at it. Some coastal redwoods are know to have 200+ reiterations. It's a natural response to a broken trunk and fallen branches. The only real question is how well doe a tree need to be established before one can force it into reiterating? I wired 5 branches on mine to force reiteration. So far, all 5 are showing active growth after they were wired. I'll know more if I it survives my abuse over the winter!