Too Basic

As a follow up to my last post on our struggling redwoods. I've performed some tests of the soil pH

So somewhat ruling out the pot size for now, the temperature and weather didn't really seem to be a factor. We had a really mild winter this year, almost no snow, and not too cold. Again both redwoods have been indoors, and sitting by some windows, so they probably never get much colder than around 60 degrees or so. The only other thing I haven't really checked, is the pH level of the soil, I read somewhere that they need a slightly acidic soil (pH 5.5 - 6.0).

From a a local garden supply store I bought a pH testing kit with 10 uses. Its pretty simple to use. Just put some soil into the test container, add a special capsule of grey powder and mix with water. I took a sample from B2, shown here before mixing.

Here is the result after about a minute of settling. The color didn't come through great, but it was a fairly dark green, looking to be around pH 7.0 - 7.5, which is too alkaline according to the info I have above.

According to the kit anyway, there isn't much you can do to change a soil that is alkaline to more acidic, though they do mention some: aluminum sulfate or iron sulfate as ways to lower pH.

Will any of this work for B2?

Redwoods Struggling On

One of my hobbies for the past few years has been raising a pair of Coastal Redwood seedlings indoors, far outside their normal range and documenting the results. I have been a little lax about posting updates although its been a pretty dramatic winter.

After a lot of growth last spring and summer redwoods seemed to be doing pretty well, branching out, growing new shoots, of the two, J2 seemed to be healthier with more mid-level branches and about 20-21" in height, B2 while nearly the same overall height ( <19" ) at the top was much more spindly and only had a few offshoots. However things have been looking pretty bleak for the past several months. Here is how they are today.

J2 - fighting on

B2 - not so good

This past winter season has not been kind to my redwoods, both experienced extensive browning or "burning" of their needles and then outer branches. The causes of this are mysterious to me. (If anyone has any experience with Redwoods indoors, I'd be happy to hear any suggestions).

This seems to be related to the season, although its not totally clear. The growth was definitely slow last winter, and I recall some browning of B2 especially. The pattern was much worse this year. I had a few guesses, maybe not enough water or moisture in general, although I do feel that we were pretty consistent all year long and the few times I tried adding a lot more water it didn't seem to have much effect.

We also have moved as you might see from the latest pictures. I thought that it might be level the sunlight that was part of the problem. That is my best guess right now, as since it's been warm enough to put them in the 3 season sun room (pictured), they've started a few shoots of regrowth. Earlier in the winter there was an accident that knocked J2 and cracked it's original pot. We re-potted into a new 8" diameter pot, that is fairly deep. Initially J2 did pretty well in the new pot at the new house. At the same time B2 started getting worse and more dry and brown, so since all other things were apparently the same we thought of re-potting B2 as well. So a few weeks later we also took B2 out of its original pot into the new 9" shown above. It was interesting and I should have photographed it, B2's root ball had one long root wrapped all the way around the base of the root ball, I wouldn't say it was root bound, but I can't say if that was a problem.

Initially there were some new shoots from B2 after the re-potting, but sadly the new shoots and needles withered and eventually died.

So somewhat ruling out the pot size for now, the temperature and weather didn't really seem to be a factor. We had a really mild winter this year, almost no snow, and not too cold. Again both redwoods have been indoors, and sitting by some windows, so they probably never get much colder than around 60 degrees or so. The only other thing I haven't really checked, is the pH level of the soil, I read somewhere that they need a slightly acidic soil (pH 5.5 - 6.0).

That comes back to the sun, it seems they are doing better with more direct sunlight, so we'll give that a try to see if they can recover.

Some final pics:

J2

B2 top

Redwoods summer update

Its been a while since I wrote about our redwood seedlings. They have been growing indoors for a little over a year now. These pictures were actually taken a few months ago when tropical storm Irene came through New England. After a fairly quiet and slow winter, these guys both started major growth spurts in the late springtime and continued to grow new needles, shoots and branches. J2 especially gained a few inches growing a new shoot straight up nearly 6 inches from where the crown used to be. B2 has seen more modest growth, but was spreading out more along the branches near the base.

J2 growing well by the window

B2 is a bit crooked

Right now, J2 is getting to be about 1.5 feet tall, while B2 has not straightened out yet, and has stayed around a foot in height.

The trunk on both is getting stiffer and covered in a brownish-red bark, the needles used to feel softer to the touch. Overall both plants feel dry to the touch and a bit prickly due to the needles.

I generally water once or twice a week, and spray with water now and then in addition to keep the branches and needles moist.

Summer is about over now up here, so I would guess we won't see much growth, and even some browning of needles, over the winter.

J2 closeup

Giant Sequoia, Dawn Redwood in downtown Boston

Recently had a chance to spend an afternoon with family in Boston Public Gardens. I recently read online that there was a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) growing in the Public Gardens. I have lived in the region for a long time, and never had any idea.

After walking in the park, keeping a lookout at the various conifer trees, dodging the crowds of tourists on a chilly Spring day we were surprised to first come across a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), a relative of the Sequoia and Redwoods native to China. Close up the needles are tightly packed and arranged flatly, almost giving the appearance of a broadleaf. I don't think I have ever seen a Dawn Redwood, it was probably 4' in diameter, hard to give a good height, maybe 50' tall. There was a faded, old, plaque identifying the tree. The tree is located on the Arlington St. side of the swan boats pond, North of the George Washington statue along a path.

A little further around the North side of the pond we found the Giant Sequoia. It was a spotted red with a very fibrous bark that looked like bleached mulch. From a distance it didn't look like a normal pine or spruce, so in that sense it stood out, it looked a bit sparser and irregular, without much of conical shape.

Of course we hung around to take some pictures. This is the first sequoia I've seen outside of California in person, and it was good to confirm that they do grow outdoors out here. However, the "giant sequoia", or Sequoiadendron are not to be confused with the Coastal Redwood which I have been trying to grow here indoors. I have never seen anywhere that the Coastal Redwood, which are adapted to the foggy Pacific coastline, can survive our winters. The Sequoiadendron is native to the Sierra Nevada mountains, so it can tolerate cold better. The Dawn Sequoia, being deciduous also apparently can grow here in this climate zone.

Up close I was amazed by how spikey the branches and needles were, it wasn't like my redwood seadlings which have fairly smooth bark on the branches with softer needles. The sequoia's branches were much denser with pretty short, sharp and stiff needles. There were a few fallen twigs around and we were able to get a good whiff of the tree's odor, which smelled nice, like a Christmas tree or wreath. It is amazing these are growing right in the center of city like this.

Later on I was browsing around various sites trying to find some more data on these trees, the Public Garden website had zero information and I haven't found anything else official about them. I came across a crowd-sourced site iNaturalist.org where users post pictures of wildlife and try to identify them. A user has posted a number of trees from the Public Garden. Apparently there are two Dawn Redwoods, as well as the one Giant Sequoia. There is a project dedicated to people making observations of "Redwoods", including the Sequoia and Dawn Redwood species, it is called RedwoodWatch organized by the Save the Redwoods League who aim to document the "in what climates redwoods can survive and track the redwood forests' migration over time.". I like the idea of the site and hope to contribute some of my own observations some day. However, at this point, not sure what merits being "observed". Also while interesting that there are Redwood tree species growing here, it is a somewhat artificial environment, I am sure there is a lot of care given to those trees in Public Gardens or in the nearby Arnold Arboretum.

Seedling update

"J2"

Our Redwood seedlings have survived the long dark New England winter and are starting to grow new shoots and widen their branches. Of the two J2 seems to have done a little better, on B2 there are some needles turning brown on an upper branch. The crown area of J2 has filled out better. Supposedly redwood seedlings can grow several feet per year, but we haven't seen growth like that yet. It could be the indoors, the pots, or even the lower levels of sunlight during our winters here. To make measuring easier I printed off some some color square rules, one inch squares and taped it to a wall as a background. As you can see the heights are about 15" for J2 and around 12" for B2, which has more of a curve. The length of the lower branches is really amazing now, the longest I've measured is around 9" and each of those has several 3-4" offshoots

"B2"

I was partly inspired to write this after watching a great National Geographic documentary Climbing Redwood Giants (2009) on Netflix. The quality was great in HD, seeing the fully grown giants was impressive. The two main focuses of the documentary were researcher Steve Sillett who using a crossbow(!), ropes and pulleys pulls himself up the giants in order to climb into the canopy and measure them. The other story a pair of researches, Micheal Fay and Lindsey Holm, transecting the known extent of the Coastal Redwood range. While a big focus was on trumpeting successes in stopping old-growth logging of Redwoods and conservation, the sheer size of the trees was the big show. I have had the opportunity to see redwoods in Muir Woods, but nothing like the 350 foot giants in the movie.

The trees ecosystem supposedly supports more biomass than any other ecosystem on Earth, including the tropical rain forests. It was interesting to see the mulberry bushes and other plants growing from the branches of some of the trees, hundreds of feet up. Another star was the Wandering Salamander that may spend its life in the tree canopy. They didn't really mention much about birds or insects nesting in the tree, which I would have assumed to be a big part of the ecosystem, although the tannins in the Redwood bark are supposed to deter insects.


Finally here are a few more pictures of the seedlings, and some of their new growths.

 

"B2" new growth shoot

Another shot of both trees.

Two's company

Christmas Redwoods

Our redwoods needed to show some Christmas spirit.

Unfortunately the only horizontal branches strong enough to really hold ornaments are near the base of the trees, about an inch or two from the soil in their pots. We managed to hang a few ornaments around the trunk. It didn't help that the ornament kit we got had no hooks for hanging.







As you can see the seedlings are doing just fine so far this winter. Generally they have been near the window for the short amount of direct sunlight we have in the apartment, the cold temperatures from outside haven't seemed to affect them too much.

Redwoods - Closeups

Instead of looking at the macro view for these trees, today I thought it would be more interesting to focus on closeups of the seedlings, now a couple months old. The colors are really striking as the stem is now turning a reddish-brown color that contrasts with the various shades of green needles and branches.

Redwoods - Day 32

Now that the seedlings have had a month to grow they have been doing well.


In general we water about twice a week, and spray the leaves and branches around every other day. The only windows in the room face east, so they get a lot of direct sun in the morning, and indirect the rest of the day. We've used some Miracle-Gro Liquid Houseplant Food, which we use for all our other house plants. In both cases starting from the bottom of the stem and growing up, the stem is turning a reddish-brown color with what seems to be the start of the redwood bark in what will be the trunk. It is only about the first 4-5 inches and after that the rest of the stem is still green like a plant's.

Specimen J2 is growing a bit fuller and maybe slightly taller. It grew a second set of branches radiating from the crown.
Specimen B2 is a little slower growing. Early on it had some "burning" of needles on some lower branches, possibly due to too much direct sunlight or under-watering. It seems to have recovered slowly but now is growing taller with more branches off the main stem.

Redwoods - Day 1

We have begun growing some Coastal Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) from seedlings.

The two seedlings arrived in the mail today from a grower in Michigan. Found them on eBay for about $4 each. They were packed in a cardboard box with shredded newspapers to keep them protected and wet?. They apparently are in good health after that trip. My uneducated guess, from reading about growing these online, these two are probably several months old at least.

Specimen B2
Approximately 9" tall


Specimen J2
Approximately 10" tall



I have been using a number of resources online for tips on growing redwoods. We'll see how they do and I'll continue to post updates here to track their progress.

http://www.virtualsecrets.com/redwood_and_pines.html
http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/faqs.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4421951_plant-grow-redwood-seedling.html