Curving, irregular habit normal. Some grow with minimal branching, others fork into candelabras.

Hi Pam, 'Gold Rush' is supposed to grow slower than the species. I think mine is just in a spot that it really likes. Mine is planted on the Northeast corner of my house. It gets morning sun and a little bit of early evening sun, which is when this photo was taken.(I guess I'd call it a partial shade situation) It's in a raised bed with fertile soil, with hostas, so it gets watered frequently. This was my second attempt at growing a one gallon 'GR'. The first one was smaller and didn't do much the first year and the rabbits ate it to the ground it's first winter. This one was larger and planted in April '07 and really took off right away. The best part is that I got it for $15.00 as an add on to a shipment of Japanese maples from Eastfork nursery. A last second impulse buy that really paid off :-) Dan

It's about time GW has zones appearing after our names. I requested they add that as well as soil type a few years back but never heard back from them. Thanks coniflora. For my behalf I had either forgotten a grafted plant kept characteristics (probably slim margins in all cases though, I would have to think) ..easier. Anyway, that's maybe my favorite thing in the world to do. Grafting that is. Dax P.s. And Noki, you pick up the pace real quickly. Just like becoming a BMX racer! And other times, you do have to work with the wood until you're satisfied everything is a go. Some grafts take me 5 minutes each. Those darn ones with the tiny wood are difficult to hold onto as well and that's on top of just the finicky ones in general. Then there's the ones where your blade cuts right through the entire understock! that one tees me off. Then there's the a to the b to c to the d .... you're always adjusting to occomodate. It's a lot of common sense technique-wise it becomes apparent rather fast. And there are no rules if you would please allow me to say when you understand what it's going to take to get those two wounds to ajoin.

"Is Coast Redwood hardiness in the east limited by its root system...?" I would say it definitely isn't. The tops of mine have been burned in the past 2 winters, but the roots had no trouble pushing them to a quick recovery in the mid-spring. And that is without heavy mulch, too. The thought some "hardiness life force" will come up from the roots is mistaken. If anything, dawn redwood roots are "used" to getting to shut down in the winter. If that happened on a coast redwood top growth, it would be disastrous. One reason they can grow along the eastern seaboard, within reason, is very dry soil in winter here is statistically highly unlikely, compared with, say, parts of the midwest. cf: http://www.climatesource.com/images/ppt_jan.gif