Such a great video, I’m so glad i found your video before my first dawn redwood arrives. So much knowledge and insight in your video. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and knowledge!
Hi Candice. It’s the 17th of June, 2024, and I’m getting ready to prune my DR forest. I prepped the 3 year old trees in pond baskets for an additional year, and then hard pruned them above and below ground before planting the forest. The trees are ready for their first pruning and thinning of the season after the first flush of growth. I had to re-watch this episode. It is still the most comprehensive primer on DRs out there, and I thank you for leaving it (and your channel) up. I’m a fan of @Dave’s Bonsai, so I can still see how your forest has developed. I don’t know if you still read the comments, but if you do, thanks again and enjoy your new direction. If you ever make it back to Bonsai, know that I’ll be watching.
I now have three or four Redwoods really putting on some great ramification but only after 15 years of mis-treatment through lack of understandng those clear rules you've stated. I have to thank Ryan Neil for first helping me understand the key to effective secondary and tertiary branch development. Holding off pruning those green fronds is so difficult sometimes!! Love your approach. Cheers
Hey Candice! I've been growing my own Dawn Redwood forest. I've been so afraid to touch it this season fearing I'd ruin it. Then i thought of your video that I'd watched awhile back. I'm so glad i waited, and now feel a bit better about moving forward thanks to you! I really miss your videos, along with the knowledge i gained from watching them. I hope you, and your family are doing well. Like the last comment, if you ever decide to return, I'd immediately tune in! Peace ✌🏿☮️
THANK YOU!! very helpful for me. i just found a redwood grove with a shit ton if vegetative offshoots that i stole some of and have no idea what to do with
Hi Candice, really useful video. May I make a suggestion; you give great direction on how and when to prune, and you show where the cuts should take place. If you could show video of you making the cuts, and the before and after, this would help solidify the learning. Thanks.
After 45 years trying to learn what I could about bonsai, in all respect, I tip my hat to your, dare I say scholarly lesson on Dawn redwood pruning care. Never had a better explanation of what to do with this species. Thanks and regards, Dan Bialik, Raleigh, NC.
Great video. Thank you. I have redwoods on a local park that I go to every year and take a branch for cuttings from. I have my dad a six inch cutting from last year but he said to me today that because it was from the bottom of the branch and I had chopped the top that it wouldn't grow. I definitely felt a bit "duh" when you started taking about selecting a leader! So I'll tell him about it and hopefully he'll get his seven foot tree that he wants in a few years.
I been looking for dawn redwood care/answer for my "cluster X " trees....you explained quite straightforward an very understandable steps to working with this tree...keep on keeping on..!!!
@@Candice.BonsaiScience I'm going back in again after looking around for more vids. You definitely have the best and most detailed info on these trees. Planning on applying this to mine this weekend. thanks again.
Nice tutorial on the dawn redwood, some really good info I must say. I plan to treat mine this spring with your technique. I’m pretty confident success will prevail, every thing you said makes sense. Glad to be a new subscriber, thanks
Thank you so much for sharing this. Very newbie bonsai enthusiast here who just gifted a redwood seedling. Now I have a valuable reference and some confidence to know what to do. Or rather, what _not_ to do this year 😉 I will be watching this video over and over in the coming years. Thank you!
Well they are easier as they are a coniferous evergreen and then handled more like our Spruce varieties. You can email me if you have specific questions also! ccmso12@yahoo.com
Thank you so much for this video! I purchased a dawn redwood this last spring and I just had a feeling it was a strange tree, I decided to leave it alone at the time until I could learn more. I'm so glad I stumbled over this video! 😊
I have been fortunate to buy (at reasonable price) a large dawn redwood bonsai of approx. 25 years which has been neglected. I intend to apply the 'five rules' to it as it grows this summer. I am in the south of the UK. Hardiness zone 7-9. 👍 I also have a mature coast redwood! Redwood potty!! 🤣
Thank you for the information. Did not know any of that. I have a very old and large DR that I’ve been working on the ramification for quite awhile but haven’t been entirely pleased with the progress. This new information will be very helpful. Thanks! 😁
my dawn redwood was about 7ft tall, got it on sale because top 5ish feet was dead. trunk is now about 1.5 inches across and its only 3ish feet tall. i got lucky on the find and because of your tips the tree has a bright future. thanks.
Hello. I love your content and enthusiasm. I have a DR and I’m concerned that it will not lignify before winter. Can you tell me why I do not see the golden color on the branches? It still looks like new growth.
Massive thanks 👍❤️ That‘s essential information. I wish you could make those videos for all kind of trees. 😊 Develop each tree in it‘s best way. Love your style. 😘 I wonder there aren‘t many viewers up to now, but I‘ll bet this will change soon. 👍
In my playlists of each tree type the first video of each list usually has all the info and care. Is there any specific tree type your needing information on?
@@Candice.BonsaiScience Thanks for asking. ❤️😊 I‘ve collected some yamadori horse chestnut trees, which do not propagate very well this year. Also some ashes, which develop quite well. Some willows (I found those in your playlist) and for the first time popular, from cuttings. Do you have experience with those trees? Any advice is highly appreciated. 😘
@@oachkatzlsmum many varieties of poplar can be a bit difficult in that they can randomly die back and are prone to some fungal issues. Let me know how it goes!
Just bought a group from a local nursery this has been a fantastically helpful video, thank you. Please can you make a similar video in the autumn, sorry fall.
@@Candice.BonsaiScience Great thank you. A lot of people in the Bonsai society of which I am secretary here in southern England, bought groups of these trees recently at a nursery. I posted your video on our society facebook page encouraging them to view it. Have a good summer. Nice to see Nigel is a fan.
Great species specific video, great information, thanks for posting. Where did you educate yourself on this species, I’ve been growing theses for years and never come across this specific information? I’m planning a statement piece this coming spring using many of my current Dawn Redwood crop, I’ve got some fairly large trees for a rustic forest. Your information will be very useful, thanks.
Hi Excellent instructional video. I’ve just been given a small forest grouping of 5 trees. The tree heights are around 12 inches (300 mm). The trunk bases are around half inch thick but there planting is about inch and a half to two inches apart in a 6 inch shallow oval pot Would you recommend separating them out to develop them individually? They seem far too close together to allow any development of branches. Any repotting tips. I’m in the UK Thanks
Asking about bald cypress because they are so similar. When deciding it's time to prune, how red does the branch have to be? A lot? Just A little? I have fronds that have bifurcated and they are turning color, but not entirely hardened. BTW, I have attached the five rules in my Bonsai Album database. Thanks.
Hi Candice, amazing information and beautiful tree composition. I'm now adopting your 5 rules and hope my badly treated 3 year old redwood will develop as it should. I have a coastal redwood(sequoia sempervirens), do I treat this with the same rules? Shane.
Thank you! That was so helpful, especially the part about letting the branch redden before pruning. Did you start your forest from cuttings or seedlings? I have a forest started but I think I let the trees get too big before I put them in the forest grouping and now I want to start another with smaller trees so I can do a better job from the beginning.
(3) were bought as 5 yo cuttings last year and then developed individually in an oar basket. 4 were purchased from and auction probably the same age and left to feather so they stayed smaller. 3 are cuttings from my original 3 I took over the winter
Once the spring flush has hardened off and it’s time to go in and prune is a good time as there should then be enough time for any new apex growth to harden off before late fall/winter.
@@Candice.BonsaiScience This is Xosh from the comment above..Thanks again for your extremely helpful video! I worked on my tree a little today and thought you might be interested to see it. I tagged you in my description so hopefully others can find you. Thanks again! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qTBnqpWm1Cs.html
Thanks it was really helpfull! So i have one Dawn Redwood in a bigger Pot and he´s doing very fine .But in the other hand my small forest that i got recently, some of the top tips and leafes dried out so hard in one day you can crush them into dust between your fingers. It was not a hot day or windy either. You have any experience with that thing? I thought if they too dry the first thing they to is getting brown. Do i need do water a reddawn forest more than 2 times a day maybe i dont want the roots to rot. Sorry for my bad english ^^
I bought a dawn redwood which was about 4meters tall, which i cut back to about 1.5meter. it has some leaf-less branches but has buts along the tree itself. It is still in a big nursery pot with original nursery soil. Do u recomment to transfer it to bonsai soil and reduce the roots or keep it in there till it made branches with leafs?
Interesting. I have a big dawn redwood bonsai but i only do my pruning in the winter though, so to minimise the mistakes. Do you prune it in the summer so as to allow more sunlight reach the interior branches? Or does it help the second flush in the autumn?
More sunlight and to push a second flush of growth - in a good season you can get 2-3 flushes. Yes pruning one a year in winter minimizes wrong cuts - but then you miss out on directing energy to what you want to develop and pushing another flush to give you more to work with
Brilliant video. I’m having trouble with my tree in sunny England. Only top growth and all lower branches have died. Should I trunk chop this year ? Before spring. Thanks
Hi, After watching this video I see you are very knowledgeable on Dawn Redwoods. Can you please help me out, my little grove seems to be struggling. Not sure if it's over or under watered. Is there an email where I can send you some pictures. Thank you in advanced for your time and consideration! 😁
Hello! I am waiting on a new 3-4 foot Dawn Redwood! I am wondering if I can keep it in a container until I find a permanent home for it. I know some trees need an air pot so that the roots aren’t restricted and become circular. I don’t want to keep it in a container for a few years just for it to topple over when planted in the ground. I currently have a rainbow eucalyptus in an air pit for this very reason! Thanks!
Absolutely no issue keeping it in the container - but if it’s going to be a in the ground tree I would get it there quick if you have real winter. I’d love to see pics of your young rainbow tree - I have been curious how they would work the last couple years and if they get colors and exfoliate when young.
@@Candice.BonsaiSciencethanks! Can I keep the Dawn Redwood in a container indoors thru a winter? Or does it need to go thru winter? Yes! I can send you the 🌈 eucalyptus. Not sure how to upload pics in chat. No colors for a few years... I’m told.
Candice Aspen in messenger DRWs need winter dormancy hours. Mine I harden off outside to 32-35f then they go to a cold room that’s 37-42 for the winter
Hello! Question, so I can do some structural pruning in the winter before the buds open? If so how much can I prune? Thank you. Love your video and the technical talk. Fuckery is my favorite jejeje!
VERY cool. What do you do with the top? Just cut straight across and wait for shoots to grow and then select the shortest? I have a 1ft tall redwood. I dont think it’s a ‘Dawn’ but it’s a Redwood that I just potted this year.
@@chancellorism you could absolutely add movement to the trunk instead of doing a formal upright. IMO trying to maintain one as a windswept tree would be a nightmare 🤣
Hi, I just bought 2 Dawn Redwoods from a mom and pop nursery. They are very skinny, half the size of a pencil, but they are 3ft tall. I'm brand new to all this and don't know what to do to start as a bonsai. Should I cut the top down about a foot so the trunk would thicken instead of just growing taller? Oh they are in a 1 gal. pot. Thanks for any info you can give. Well I just browsed thru your videos hoping to find something for newbies like myself but couldnt find anything. Can you recommend a channel for someone like myself?
This is a great channel for you then 🤣. Since you just got them let them acclimate and then this fall we will do a trunk chop when the foliage changes color and starts to drop
Can you truck chop a Dawn Redwood to get trunk thickness the way you would a maple? Would it backbud strongly if it's a healthy tree? I'm thinking of a situation where you basically take a tall tree down to an 18" stub without any branches. Would a DR respond well to that technique or would it likely kill the tree?
Absolutely! I’d probably do that type of chop after the spring flush hardens off and then the tree starts growing strong again - so for me like mid June
@@Candice.BonsaiScience Well, that sounds great, thanks Candice. I ask because I have a the chance to pick up a large one in the next week or so but it's every bit 10' now with very little low branching (as you said, very apical dominant) so I'm on the fence about it. I'd have to take it down to 6' or so even to get it home. Probably best to just look into a forest group in the future. Thanks again!
Hey Candice, i don't want to be a pest but, what does it mean if the frawns aren't fully extending. Mine are kinda curly. I'd love to send you a pic of it if possible. If not i understand.
No, this is a 4” deep 32” pot, so plenty big enough for this stage of development in a forest grouping where we are trying to develop now the branching as a cohesive forest piece. The trees were developed individually in pond baskets and then placed in this big training pot when the trunks were my desired thickness.
Subscribed because clusterfuck. But for real, awesome video and I learned tons of stuff! Me and three young Redwoods (one mother, two kids) say thank you! Will try do manage my own clusterfuck from here on out. I repotted them again this second season/spring, and I removed buds super early in spring to direct growth and get that staggered structure from the get go. Is that ok/good if I know I wont be needing a branch there?
Depends- I leave mine all on until I do the post flush pruning since all the energy concentrated on the trunk will help it thicken. Removing the buds early isn’t necessarily bad or wrong - but it also removes potential better branches to switch to
If your wanting to keep portions of the previous trunk that’s developed from the trunk chop prior then you won’t chop in that area again until all the ‘rules’ have been met. If your wanting to trunk chop down into hardwood then any time. If chopping down to hardwood pick a spot just above a bar branch location or spot with newer green suckers growing - then give it a few weeks to see if it will push a new apex bud out growing upright - if it doesn’t you made your chop in a location then to wire up one of the bar branches or new growth pieces to become the new apex leader
I have not looked into those in depth but most likely the coastal redwood has similar parallels. The Bald Cypress is a completely unrelated species to the Dawn Redwood.