Dawn redwood advice

[Fishtank307]

I just got this dawn redwood in exchange for a day's work at my teacher's nursery. Pretty good bargain imo! It has a wide base, the nebari isn't bad and it has some taper. Atm there are two possible new leaders, in case the top one dies off. I'm going to repot later this spring, but I still need to pick a front. Which one would you pick?

Front A (slight bend to the right)


Base A


Front B (formal upright, leaning towards the viewer)


Base B (actually has more depth, slightly rotated)



Close up of the bark...




Also, I was thinking about buying a decent training pot for this one. Something heavy and sturdy, brown rectangular pot maybe?

 

[Cable]

A

 

[JosephCooper]

front A and base B if that's even possible

But seriously front a and when you repot it put it at a more extreme slant.

 

[Fishtank307]

Better pictures:

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Better pictures:

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Your teacher is awesome.......and yes I am agreeing with A. Also once you get tired of it.....post to Korea lol

 

[Fishtank307]

Also once you get tired of it.....post to Korea lol

Slim chance! I can't keep my eyes off it!

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Slim chance! I can't keep my eyes off it!

Dont blame you but remember to blink once in a while

 

[shinmai]

Just out of curiosity, why are the branches on a dawn redwood wired to droop down?

 

[JosephCooper]

Just out of curiosity, why are the branches on a dawn redwood wired to droop down?

Drooping branches on conifers happens when the snow on them is so heavy it permanently bends them down. This is supposed to show that in miniature.

 

[Cable]

That's not how dawn redwoods grow, though. Since they lose their foliage the snow doesn't stick like most conifers so the branches overall will angle up even on mature trees.

 

[shinmai]

I discussed this with my daughter in law who is a PhD botanist. Her specialty is redwoods, and her post-doc work is at UC-Davis, where they are sequencing the redwood genome.
Cable is exactly right. The DR disappeared from the fossil record during the late Pleistocene era, a time at which their range included areas with severe winters. Her assertion is that because they are deciduous, they would not have a drooping branch habit, even in regions with heavy snow. In fact, drooping branches exist nowhere in the fossil evidence. Since their rediscovery in 1940, and the distribution of seeds beginning with the arboretum at Harvard in 1946, their endemic range has been almost entirely in areas without meaningful snowfall.
A google image search reveals only DR’s with upward branching habits, especially the older ones.
Someone told me that the point is not to make a tree look like Bonsai, but rather to make the Bonsai look like a tree. There are not now, nor have their ever been, DR’s with downward drooping branches.

 

[JosephCooper]

Maybe it isn't supposed to look like a Dawn Redwood, maybe it's styled like evergreen conifers.

You can have bonsai resemble a redwood or a pine. I don't think trees have to be strictly trained the way they grow naturally.

 

[Cable]

Speculation, your honor, and I move it be stricken

 

[shinmai]

Reminds me of the old joke about my dog, the punch line of which is, “because he can”.
I posed the question out of curiosity, not judgment—God knows there’s no shortage of that around here. I don’t care if someone styles a tree to look like a damn jellyfish. Personally, I think that fellow ended up in possession of a damned fine specimen of a DR, and sounds like he counts himself lucky. I just happen to think that the DR is so special that it should be celebrated for what it is—for example, out of the entire known universe of trees, it’s one of only five species of deciduous gymnosperms.
Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary. Title, taxes, and dealer prep are extra.

 

[twisted trees]

I just got this dawn redwood in exchange for a day's work at my teacher's nursery. Pretty good bargain imo! It has a wide base, the nebari isn't bad and it has some taper. Atm there are two possible new leaders, in case the top one dies off. I'm going to repot later this spring, but I still need to pick a front. Which one would you pick?

Front A (slight bend to the right)
View attachment 181345

Base A
View attachment 181347

Front B (formal upright, leaning towards the viewer)
View attachment 181349

Base B (actually has more depth, slightly rotated)

View attachment 181350

Close up of the bark...
View attachment 181351

View attachment 181354

Also, I was thinking about buying a decent training pot for this one. Something heavy and sturdy, brown rectangular pot maybe?

I would just let it grow, develop some ramifications and gain of a look of agedness before I would decide too much. Practice patience in the meanwhile.

 

[Fishtank307]

I wired the branches down because I like pine bonsai that way. Simple! Especially on upright trees.. I know branches of dawn redwood grow more upright and the shape is very conical, but I choose to give a little more character (in my eyes).. This isn't 'natural' for dawn redwood, but it's the way I like it! Each to their own

 

[rockm]

I discussed this with my daughter in law who is a PhD botanist. Her specialty is redwoods, and her post-doc work is at UC-Davis, where they are sequencing the redwood genome.
Cable is exactly right. The DR disappeared from the fossil record during the late Pleistocene era, a time at which their range included areas with severe winters. Her assertion is that because they are deciduous, they would not have a drooping branch habit, even in regions with heavy snow. In fact, drooping branches exist nowhere in the fossil evidence. Since their rediscovery in 1940, and the distribution of seeds beginning with the arboretum at Harvard in 1946, their endemic range has been almost entirely in areas without meaningful snowfall.
A google image search reveals only DR’s with upward branching habits, especially the older ones.
Someone told me that the point is not to make a tree look like Bonsai, but rather to make the Bonsai look like a tree. There are not now, nor have their ever been, DR’s with downward drooping branches.

What a species does and doesn't do in the wild really has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on what kind of bonsai can or should be made from the material.

Attempting to mimic exactly how particular species behave is extremely limiting in the kinds of material you can use. If that were the case, boxwood, azaleas and other shrubby plants wouldn't be used at all, since in maturity those aren't trees.

Bonsai has never been about simply replicating trees in nature. It is about how humans communicate with one another through a plant. Bonsai don't "feel" or "express themselves" People clip bonsai to make others respond. Doesn't really matter what material you're using, or what design you're doing, it's all about whether the plant communicates a message to others. Drooping branches suggest age to the human eye. That trick is perfectly acceptable.

The "make your bonsai look like a tree," statement doesn't specify "except when you're using a dawn redwood, then don't let the branches droop because it NEVER does that EVER."

 

[shinmai]

I wired the branches down because I like pine bonsai that way. Simple! Especially on upright trees.. I know branches of dawn redwood grow more upright and the shape is very conical, but I choose to give a little more character (in my eyes).. This isn't 'natural' for dawn redwood, but it's the way I like it! Each to their own

I couldn’t agree more, which you would immediately understand if you saw some of the weird idiosyncratic stuff residing in my greenhouse. The instructor in a class I’m taking talked about someone who developed a forest planting, and then took a blowtorch to it and showed it as ‘after the forest fire’. As you rightly say, to each their own.

I don’t care a whit about anyone’s feelings about my trees other than my own. As I said in the subsequent post, I asked out of curiosity and you answered the question, end of story. Please don’t mistake me for one of those pompous horse’s asses who thinks they have a God-given right to condescendingly lecture other people about art, Bonsai, and the meaning of life.

I am, however, jealous. If your teacher ever needs somebody again to do a day’s work for a gem like that tree, I want to volunteer. Best of luck with the tree, and I’d love to see pics as you develop it out. Cheers!

 

[Fishtank307]

Here in Belgium, redwood starts to bud out in March/April. Taxodium starts growing in May. The first buds on this tree opened in May. So this might be a taxodium...

Also, I hate spider mites! When the buds started to open, they turned brown immediately and there were mites everywhere! I had sprayed with chemicals twice, with no effect. Now I've moved it to a more humid part of the yard and sprayed it once with water, soap and ethanol. Then I tried to mist it at least three times a day.
Now, out of the little brown branches and leaflets, green tips are appearing!











After a rough start, I'm glad the spider mite infstation is 'under control'. They probably aren't all gone, but it's good to see some green growth at last! Time to recuperate!

 

[WNC Bonsai]

As I remember bald cypress have alternate budding whereas dawn redwood have alternate. Looks like a bald cypress to me.