LittleDingus
Omono
It's cold and rainy today...so time to pot another redwood!
Today, it's this one:
Dawn redwoods are a perfect example of why the scratch test is not reliable. Just a few weeks ago the buds on this one were brown through and through. Snapping them off or scratching the bark just revealed more brown. The only clue the tree was still alive was that the branches were still supple and there was no wrinkling. A week of unseasonably warm weather later and there is green budding out everywhere!
This is the dawn redwood from my original family of redwoods that I had pots commissioned for. The coastal redwood was repotted above. The sequoia died
But it's this guys turn to go into its pot:
This one had a good amount of root work done when it was moved into the 5 gallon grow bag. There were no circling roots or very many crossing roots. Combing out was relatively easy. Even though it was in a folded down grow bag, the root ball still needed about 3" cut off the bottom. But, thanks to the previous root work, that still still left a pretty decent matte of feeder roots
After I got the tree tied up and settled into the pot, I went ahead and trimmed some off the top.
There's not much rhyme or reason to the trim at this point. I actually wanted to leave the bottom branches longer and prune to a pyramid shape, but there was some deadwood that forced them to be pruned shorter so all the branches above needed to be pruned shorter then as well I left nubs everywhere that will need to be cleaned up later when I see which buds want to take control. For now, I think there are still plenty of buds ready to power some root regrowth.
As an interesting aside, the rings on this tree are very distinct:
That's the trunk cut made at about 2' from the soil. The tree is 4 years old at this height The tree is actually 5 years from seed...but the first year's growth didn't reach the height where I cut...so no ring.
Temps are predicted to dip into the high 20Fs tonight and maybe not much higher than mid 30Fs tomorrow...but then we climb back into the 50Fs and maybe higher again. I'll leave this tree in the barn for the next couple of days but then hopefully it can go beck outside and stay there.
Today, it's this one:
Dawn redwoods are a perfect example of why the scratch test is not reliable. Just a few weeks ago the buds on this one were brown through and through. Snapping them off or scratching the bark just revealed more brown. The only clue the tree was still alive was that the branches were still supple and there was no wrinkling. A week of unseasonably warm weather later and there is green budding out everywhere!
This is the dawn redwood from my original family of redwoods that I had pots commissioned for. The coastal redwood was repotted above. The sequoia died
But it's this guys turn to go into its pot: This one had a good amount of root work done when it was moved into the 5 gallon grow bag. There were no circling roots or very many crossing roots. Combing out was relatively easy. Even though it was in a folded down grow bag, the root ball still needed about 3" cut off the bottom. But, thanks to the previous root work, that still still left a pretty decent matte of feeder roots
After I got the tree tied up and settled into the pot, I went ahead and trimmed some off the top.
There's not much rhyme or reason to the trim at this point. I actually wanted to leave the bottom branches longer and prune to a pyramid shape, but there was some deadwood that forced them to be pruned shorter so all the branches above needed to be pruned shorter then as well
I left nubs everywhere that will need to be cleaned up later when I see which buds want to take control. For now, I think there are still plenty of buds ready to power some root regrowth.As an interesting aside, the rings on this tree are very distinct:
That's the trunk cut made at about 2' from the soil. The tree is 4 years old at this height
The tree is actually 5 years from seed...but the first year's growth didn't reach the height where I cut...so no ring.Temps are predicted to dip into the high 20Fs tonight and maybe not much higher than mid 30Fs tomorrow...but then we climb back into the 50Fs and maybe higher again. I'll leave this tree in the barn for the next couple of days but then hopefully it can go beck outside and stay there.
