Starting a Dawn Redwood and a Coastal Redwood Bonsai, Part 1, The Bonsai Zone, May 2020 

Hey mommm that man is filming our tree again!

In the 2 short years that I have been collecting and growing bonsai, I often consult RU-vid often for inspiration and information. Nigel, your approach to reproduce the natural look of trees is consistently the most appealing and inspirational to me and is the style I most often attempt to replicate. Cheers from Michigan!

I'd love to see a follow-up on this dawn redwood to see how it turned out!

Just found you, that tree is exactly what I want. Please keep updating it.

"There is a train going by" That's the best start so far.

Perfect way to start my day! Thanks! Hope you have a great one today.

So glad you worked on your Dawn Redwood. I have a group of five planting i didnt have a clue what to do with. Now i have a good idea, just been out and pruned them so each one has a nice leader, and got rid of some extra unwanted branches. Thanks Nigel.

Hello Nigel. I love your videos. I try and watch them all. I picked up a Dawn Redwood from my local Bonsai Nursery here in Australia a few weeks ago. You're vision on the shape for it has given me alot of help when I get around to cleaning up my tree. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to Bonsai.

I have some dawn redwoods at home and I find that one common habit of the tree is that they tend to drop some of their late season growth off during fall along with smaller weaker branchs which seem to be a common habit. They also have a vigorous root system (at least with the ones I've been working with) and recovered in a year when I heavily reduced it. (My tree was only a small tree and it was pretty tough). Also they are extremely malleable and easy to wire. Sometimes dawn redwood can get confused with bald cypress but they can be distinguished by the needle arrangement, dawn redwood has pairs of needles going up a stem whilst bald cypress doesn't, having a more random arrangement.

I love redwoods, it's awesome to see some redwood bonsais, I can't wait to see how they mature, I wish I had some.

This species is very water loving. With a good draining medium, they can be watered 2-3 times a day no problem on warm/hot days and absolutely thrive. As well as, it will bud back profusely anywhere you cut them pretty much. An extremely vigorous species and very fast growing. Much like bald cypress. Dont be scared to cut the branches back as far as you normally do haha. You will see as it starts to grow. Very very vigorous indeed! Now...back to the video.

Great class- studying Trees growing in nature then turning to the little Trees in their Bonsai pots.

"so, here I go" mantra of the determined :)

Love your show. It’s amazing how you transform regular plants to works of art. If I just had the faith and patience to do what you do. Love your hair more, especially in this time of social distancing. I’m still wary about visiting a salon, and my hair now decides for itself how it will look for the day. 💚

Loved the spooky forest! So cool! It totally looked just like a real forest.

Man, I love to do rootwork and watching these rootwork vids. It's like unwrapping a present. And then sorting out the roots and wrapping the present back up for yourself to unpack in a few years! So exciting. Great video Nigel. I've got a Dawn Redwood myself that I bought a little while ago. It's grown in a informal upright style. Which will be a challenge to keep it in, with the way these grow. I'll have to wire them, besides clip and grow. Thanks for this vid, makes me less anxious to work on my own tree.

Hi Nigel, not sure if someone already recommended this, but I suggest you get a WiFi thermometer, that way you can monitor temperatures remotely from your phone and get historical data. Most likely you can also set a low temperature alarm so you can prevent them from freezing.

Keep 'em coming Nigel. I love spring; we're getting some lovely mild weather in the UK and I feel so grateful to have a little garden in this time of lock-down and my pre-bonsais are all budding. Oh, and Nigel's great content 💗

People in your neighborhood think you're the crazy tree guy? LOL The trees did look cool with flashlight light! Glad that worked out for you, should be the last true cold spell, knock on wood.

I look forward to seeing how your Dawn Redwoods mature over time. I'm 4 months into growing some from seeds and have 9 promising seedlings to work with in the future. I enjoyed hearing you talk through how you analyze trees in the wild as well. Thanks for the video!

good video, dawn redwoods love water, I just keep mine in on a water tray, they respond really well to it

You are a champion Nigel

Really good everything is coming back!!

This was the most amazing video I’ve ever watched. I wish I could give at least 100 thumbs up 👍. Everything was brilliant. The walk to see the trees outside , the risky but necessary root-cutting 👏 and last not least the spooky visits to the greenhouse to see the temperature. I held my breath and hoped for the best. The full moon 🌕 and the fact that all trees were fine the next morning made the pleasure complete. I’d a look online to see the shape of Redwood Bonsai but I was quite shocked. I didn’t find any Bonsai that looked like in nature (Diamond shape). That’s disappointing 😏 Sorry for the long comment . Thank you so much Nigel ! You’re the best .

Hello Nigel. I would like to thank you for all the info from your videos. I started my first Bonsai last spring after watching many of your videos over the winter. Glad to say every one i have made it though winter fine. First few i got were dawn redwoods from a nursery that they gave to me for free. Would love to send you some pics. Nothing special yet being only my first year but in time i hope to turn them into a nice bonsai. thx again

That root triangle over rock, beautiful 😢😢 beautiful tree nevertheless.

Subscribed originally because of your juniper bonsai that you trimmed in a redwood style - nice to see more redwoods! :-)

I wonder how I missed this video. Awesome.

Thanks Nigel enjoying bike ride 🚲

Dear Nigel, your videos are great. Sun setting at 7 pm...I´ll never see it here in Colombia. Lots of little details, like St. David St and Nelson St. posts. It sets your videos on a real scenario. Waw. No branch wiring, no root anchoring and nonetheless your trees always look healthy and happy. Only you can do it. I watch quite a bunch of bonsai channels and I swear nobody else do it. You are innovation into motion in the most traditional fine art of all.Congratulations. Thanks a lot.

Nice video Nigel! Those POV shots of you going into the greenhouse reminded me of some survival horror type of game. Reminded me of Resident Evil! The spooky vibe is strong at night in your backyard.

A real thriller video this one!

that was cool like a mystery show. left a like and im glad it worked for you

Very cool bit on the night in the greenhouse! :)

I do have a couple of things to say about the dawn redwood. Most conifers are sensitive to root pruning. It is best to keep root removal to no more than 30% of their mass. and as for looking at trees for inspiration you need to find a tree with a trunk near 10 meters in size with a height of from 60 to 80 meters. this is what a mature redwood looks like.

I started a black locus tree last year from seed. I wish I could send you some. The way you germinate them is very interesting and would make a good video.

I keep a water tray under my dawns in the summer. Like my willows.

Hi Nigel always love the videos. Would you consider doing video on sharpening and maintaining cutters. Nothing like having good sharp tools.

Floating seeds in my experience are often the first to germinate. They’ve often been the most vigorous plants as well. So it’s good you have a ton of them that float.

So hope your tropicals are good!!! I'm hoping to move mine out soon. I'll be risking mine in the cold frame thurs

Those trees really have a primitive type of growth pattern called "modèle de Rauh" . Very interesting to look at!

What a strong root pruning. I would be really afraid that the tree will recover from it. But I think you know what you're doing.

Hello everyone, who will be Foist?

Awesome video

I kinda liked that large snake root! lol It was kinda a cool feature even if it didn't go well with the overall composition.

It should do fine. I've seen videos where their roots got pruned close to zero (only a small fine root was left) and they continued. I look forward to updates :)

love all the contents you have being sharing here. I would like to see your brazilian rain tree. updates if possible

Nice stick :) Actually, I think it is a nice tree already. Specially due to the actual root base. Let’s hope it survives.

My coast redwood didn't make through the recent cold spell. It went down to 23 below zero last week. I brought it inside and I thought it died, but I'm seeing branches coming out of the dirt. I'm gonna bonsai it. I'm gonna cut away all the dead parts and bonsai the rest. It's a 4 foot tree with 5 or 6 live 3" branches poking through the dirt.My Giant Sequoya's are doing great though. They're tough little trees

Love your videos! I just finished an arboriculture course and learned how trees planted in a landscape setting take on a different form than in a natural forest setting. Landscape trees will have bigger, longer branches, extending far out from the trunk. Many trees also develop multiple leaders and weird branch spacing. This is all because sunlight and space are abundant in the landscape. Trees can grow wide branches and often compete against the leader. In a forest, there is not much space and more competition for light. Trees have short branches and a central, dominant leader. With all that said, I think you should style and shape your bonsai off of trees in a forest, rather than a landscape.

I have a clip-and-grow Dawn Redwood forest, Nigel. I actually started it after seeing your larch forest and avatar grove. 🙂

Hi Nigel. In ont ca. I was a chicken last night and I brought in all my bonsai. I guess they will have to stay inside for another week. Sure are some crazy times with C19 and so called hot (cold) climate change. Nice to know that -2 c outside with a small heater gives you an inside temp of 10.9 c. Something to remember. Thankyou

Thanks Nigel. Tha dawn redwood just up the street from you? Is just down the street from my old apartment. I will return the favour? The hatchery? right behind that, on the edge of that field is a MASSIVE Bartlett pear. It throws fruit by the bushel. Again, thank you for Dawn Redwood number 5 a comfortable walk from my place. This one I feel like no one will mind me taking cuts off.

Interesting Dawn Redwood specimen. It looks like it’s off to a great start. Fingers crossed for it’s surviving that root pruning. Thanks

Looking forward to the london plane seedlings, they are easy to germinate (if you have fresh seeds, if the seeds dried out once they don´t seem to germinate well anymore) but the tiny seedlings are pretty hard to keep alive. Oh and do you have a Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) too? Would be interesting to have all three! :)

It will recover from the hard root pruning I have done and I am in Cairo Egypt and the weather here is warm throughout the year it never gets below zero and in summer it reaches 45-50 degrees centigrade

Good luck tonight with the cold temperatures! Crazy cold...

Did the tree survive the intense root pruning?? I would love to see an update if it did survive 😊

Nigel, what's that noise don't go in, please don't go in, Nigel @ 42:15 "BOO" gotcha!

Based on the weather forecast I just heard, I expect you'll be taking your tropicals back inside today! Below-zero temperatures, wind chill of -10, snow, ...

Live!

Getting scared for those tropicals! Seeing 6 degrees on the monitor made me worry :O

a bit late but i'm around Nigel ! :) :)

These second oak seeds comes from Quercus robur. They have this long petiole, and acorn is long too.

👏👏👍

Hi Nigel I've found if you make a stack of bricks in the green house they act as a heat sink on those chilly nights

Just curious, do you ever plan on painting or cleaning up the rust on the bike or do you like the patina?

Relative Humidity lesson :-) Air can hold a certain amount of water vapour. Hot air can hold more water vapour than cold air. Relative Humidity (RH) is the percentage of water vapour in the air divided by the amount of water vapour it can hold at the current temperature. So if the air is holding 18 grams of water and it *could* hold 100 grams of water, the relative humidity is 18%. When you take cold air and heat it up, the relative humidity drops. This is because the air holds the same amount of water, but the amount of water it *could* hold goes up. So if it's 8 degrees outside with 40% humidity and your heat it up to 38 degrees, the humidity will drop -- probably to single digits. You need to add a *lot* of water (many liters) to significantly increase the humidity in a space as large as your greenhouse. It also takes time for it to evaporate given that the temperature is quite far away from boiling.

Don't forget to take the cuttings from the Dawn Redwood and try to root them. Forest? Might be worth a try.

I was just thinking about redwood bonsais this morning, what good timing I might go with ponderosa because I like the idea growing native species, but honestly the closest I can get to native is sagebrush and I've heard they smell like maryjane xp

How old should the redwood be before potting? They grow pretty vigorously. I bought some from Johnsteens in Humbolt

so how useful is a turntable? i never had one are they like worth getting?

Also, why use the stones for the majority of the medium? I know its good for drainage, but redwoods need constant moisture and rocks cant do that. Is it to keep the soil underneath moist and protected from dry air??

Hello Nigel.Very nicely done video.I would like to ask,what kind of soil did you use for planting the redwood? What proportions you usually use for this type of trees? Thanks in advance.

What kind of water soluble fertilizer do you use? Love your channel :)

Looks like a leaf (1st tree with its nerves large and small)

You are forgetting one, the Sequoia. I have all three and need help with a lot more. Question. Can you grow a Rainbow Eucalyptus as bonsai ???

👌

You might file the acorns and tamarind seeds before soaking.

💖💖😊👍💖💖

Maybe not helpful but the int he mili6they teach you that one candle can keep a room above freezing temperatures and will keep a human alive. Might help the bonsai in harsh winter. Just a thought.

Question... what were the red bits in the original soil? They almost look like pulverized brick!

Hey nigel, is it possible for an avocado to be grown as a bonsai

Hi Nigel. How many millimetres are the gaps in your sieve that you use to prepare your soil mix?

😁👍

What do you use for soil

Chào bạn, làm thế nào để thu nhỏ bầu rễ của một cây ngoài thiên nhiên vào một chậu nhỏ được vậy? Tôi đã cắt ngắn rễ của chúng và cho vào chậu nhỏ, nhưng chúng đều đã chết..😓😓 tôi rất thích trồng cây bonsai siêu mini xin bạn hướng dẫn cụ thể...

Interesting that two ancient trees, Ginkgo biloba and Metasequoia glyptostoboides, share a similar form. Pure coincidence I'm sure.

If you increase the humidity would it help.

That coast redwood looks dead, mine goes brown when exposed to harsh sunlight and its cold resistant unlike the dawn redwood it does not go into dormancy to my knowledge.

When update with jade bonsai trees?

Why did you covered up the nebari ?

Anyone else hoping for a bonsai zone discord server? Nigel! Please!!!!

Both the other tops will probably root. Unless it's too late

Hello Nigel Do You have Chinese elm bonsai?

Nigel, please let us know if this tree survived

Why do tips of my serissa leaves brown ? Thanks 😊

G day my friend, could you recommend a aussie tree for me, cheers

14:10 "they just snap like twigs" erm...

I planted a seed of a giant sequoia tree and all of the sudden it shot right though my head and through the roof and it grew SO TALL it grew to be a million feet tall and 100 feet wide! Haha just kidding