Lorax7 Coastal Redwood #1 progression

[Lorax7]

Got it barerooted in a plastic bag from Johnsteen’s in 2019, potted it up, overwintering indoors that year. Forgot to bring it indoors for winter last year. Here it is in spring 2021 after I cut off the dead brown branches:


Here it is now, fall 2021:


I’m thinking that it deserves a t-shirt that says, “I survived a zone 5b winter and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!”

 

[Lorax7]

Trimmed and wired it today:

 

[Lorax7]

Gave it a trim and wired up a new leader.

Before:





After:

 

[MGTT]

Good job ‘recovering’! It would have been easy to give up and toss it.

The third ‘after’ pic looks like a pine.
You may be starting a new styling movement for Redwoods

 

[PowerTap]

Do you have a strategy for how often you are reducing the leader? I have a very similar tree on about the same timeline, also from Jonsteen, it got big this summer and I was thinking about letting grow longer, or starting to hack it back aggressively.

 

[Lorax7]

Do you have a strategy for how often you are reducing the leader? I have a very similar tree on about the same timeline, also from Jonsteen, it got big this summer and I was thinking about letting grow longer, or starting to hack it back aggressively.

Not really. I’m not entirely sure that the chops I have done so far will be the final ones. I’m mainly just knocking the top growth back while keeping some length on the low branches to thicken up the base. I kinda think I may have been too conservative with the first chop and done it up higher than I should’ve. Time will tell. Ultimately, my motivation for shortening it now is simply to make it fit in my limited indoor overwintering space.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Not really. I’m not entirely sure that the chops I have done so far will be the final ones. I’m mainly just knocking the top growth back while keeping some length on the low branches to thicken up the base. I kinda think I may have been too conservative with the first chop and done it up higher than I should’ve. Time will tell. Ultimately, my motivation for shortening it now is simply to make it fit in my limited indoor overwintering space.

When in Michigan do you bring the coast redwoods indoors? What temp and how much light/watering are you giving over winter? I'm in Illinois and have been hesitant to get into coast redwood again, after moving here from northern california where they are natively.

 

[Lorax7]

When in Michigan do you bring the coast redwoods indoors? What temp and how much light/watering are you giving over winter? I'm in Illinois and have been hesitant to get into coast redwood again, after moving here from northern california where they are natively.

Yes, I bring them indoors. If you scroll back up to the very first post in the thread you can see the rather catastrophic results from a time when I forgot and left one outside all winter. It survived but lost most of its branches. A few branches close to the base were spared by snow cover.

They’re kept at room temperature in my unfinished basement, which ends up being a bit cooler than the temperature in the main living spaces of the house. I keep the main living spaces around 70. The basement is probably somewhere in the mid 60s. I keep them on the bottom shelves of my plant racks, so they don’t get as much light as my tropicals, but they don’t seem to mind. I have an LED panel aimed at them from the side and there are LED panels above the top shelves of the racks.

 

[cbrshadow23]

Yes, I bring them indoors. If you scroll back up to the very first post in the thread you can see the rather catastrophic results from a time when I forgot and left one outside all winter. It survived but lost most of its branches. A few branches close to the base were spared by snow cover.

They’re kept at room temperature in my unfinished basement, which ends up being a bit cooler than the temperature in the main living spaces of the house. I keep the main living spaces around 70. The basement is probably somewhere in the mid 60s. I keep them on the bottom shelves of my plant racks, so they don’t get as much light as my tropicals, but they don’t seem to mind. I have an LED panel aimed at them from the side and there are LED panels above the top shelves of the racks.

Thanks that's helpful. What time of year do you bring them indoors and when do you put them back outside?

 

[Lorax7]

Thanks that's helpful. What time of year do you bring them indoors and when do you put them back outside?

When I take all my outdoor trees off the benches and place them on the ground in their winter storage area (after the first hard freeze), I also bring my coastal redwoods indoors. They could stay out longer, but it’s more convenient for me to just do all the tree relocation at once.

I bring them back outside in the spring when we’re past the high risk period for frost, which is also typically when I pull the outdoor trees out of their winter storage area and put them back up on the benches.