BTW .. got my Td from biglot.. a 6 foot stick in a two gal peat pot stuck in a plastic bag ... for about 10 bucks ...

neither is as rare or mysterious as you might think ... in fact there is a post in the tree forum where someone is offering to give some babes away ...

both trees grow rather fast once established.. i wouldnt go paying hundreds for a plant ....

ken

They grow fast whaas - Larix kaempferi. If you still want one, just let me know... then again I didn't realize you purchased already a Metasequoia.

Dax

Hey, thats me giving some away! I would offer to mail one up but you can get one professionally mailed for about fifteen bucks.

But if you are in st louis soon come get one! We are using them as a promotional giveaway at work now.

I was just at Creve Coeur Park today looking at all the single leader Taxodium planted near the lake. Most are just now breaking dormancy. Both my Metasequoias are a week or so ahead of them.

Toronado, no I don't regularly get snow while the Bald Cypress is in leaf. Our heavy, wet snows and ice split it apart at a narrow crotch after the needles fell. There is another narrow crotch further up and it will more than likely break in a few years. I probably should have watched it closer and cut them out as soon as I could. The area where it is planted got ahead of me for a few years and the brush, and blackberries just about took over before I could get back to clean them out.
Here's a picture of it.

{{gwi:674105}}

The foliage at the top is a Larix. It too was damaged because I planted it too close to a row of Thuja plicatas. It leaned out looking for light and caught more ice than it could handle. I'll know better next time.
Mike

Taxodium mucronatum may grow faster than metasequoia glyptostroboides in the far south. I suppose I will find out by the end of fall since there are some to compare. So far, lack of rainfall in Texas isn't helping very much. 95% of Texas are under drought already. I like the weepy form of T. mucronatum. I have this seedling with nice red fall color so I am keeping an eye on this one. Some of cypress trees can produce spectacular fall color!

I planted my 6 footer about a week ago and the buds aren't even swelling yet. Where the heck is spring!!

Both are great trees. I have hundreds of taxodium planted and a nice little grove of dawn redwoods started.

I agree that the fall foliage of dawn redwoods tend to have more of a peach or apricot color whereas bald cypress can turn a beautiful rusty red.

Dawn redwoods seem to me to generally be a faster grower than bald cypress. I do have a bald cypress I planted as a bare-root one year old seedling in 3/81 that is now 75+ feet in height and probably 20 inches dbh. So bald cypress can grow pretty well.

I totally disagree with the notion that dawn redwoods have a much more interesting trunk and bark. That seems to be the conventional wisdom, haha, passed along all over the place by people who maybe just have not seen enough bald cypress. I have observed thousands of bald cypress, planted and in their natural habitat, and some of the fluting and buttressing of the trunks can be fantastic. I need to bring a camera along to build up a portfolio to show how special some bald cypress trunks can be. It is thought that some of the incredible fluting of bald cypress in areas subject to floods is actually an adaptation to give more surface area to a trunk, thereby helping the trunk absorb more oxygen. At the same time, I have observed planted cypress in drier areas also developing beautiful fluting of the base.

Like I said, both trees are great. Plant them both.

*****
* Posted by toronado3800 Z6 St. Louis (My Page) on
Sat, Mar 26, 11 at 23:05

The case for one:
Metasequoia is quite the specimen and Ogon borders on the ridiculous attention getter! I can see where either could not be the correct choice though.

Regular Dawn Redwoods if you leave the lower branches on are prone to get them fluted trunks.
****

Definitely. My mail-order Dawn redwood bare-root stick planted in 2004 now has a trunk dia of 11 inches (28 cm) at the ground (& 25' tall), a bigger trunk than any other of my planted trees. But it tapers quite rapidly going up.

However, IMHO, Bald cypress foliage is superior -- finer textured & from a distance looks like a green, wispy cloud.

cypressknee -

The bald cypress in central Texas growing along the river seem to be different. The knees aren't as pronounced as the ones in the east. Guadalupe river about 30 miles north of San Antonio where it is a very popular place for tubing is lined with big bald cypress trees growing right into limestone bedrock. Frio River through Garner State Park is another spectacular place to check them out. No pronounced knees either.

Incidentally the Tx hill-country bald cypress variety lou mentions (I have 2 from Guadalupe River) leaf out about 3 weeks earlier than the bald cypress I have from Arbor Day planted about 24' away. It also has greener (darker)foliage and is currently growing faster than Arbor Day (in Blackland clay soil). When you see them both, it is a clearly superior tree in this environment.

Dax....great photos! I assume those are from the Cache River lowlands of Illinois. Hope to get there one day.

Lou...I've been to the Guadalupe River and seen some of those great cypress. Absolutely agree that the cypress of the bayous in Louisiana have many more knees. My theory is that the flowing waters of those beautiful Texas hill country rivers is much more oxygenated than sluggish bayous farther east, thus the cypress has less need for knees.

This theory could be all wet as I'm not sure it has ever been conclusively proven that the purpose of the knees is to gather oxygen.

I've measured knees in Louisiana over 9 feet tall. The knees can have fantastic shapes in their own right.

Garner Park is definitely on my list. I've seen photos of some those big boys there.

Wonderful, primitive tree, taxodium distichum!

That is the place cypressknee. Bring a beekeeper's hat along, the mosquitos are fierce. Then again, I'll bet you already own one and have a spare in your vehicle.

Dax

Might be a dumb question, but how do you tell the two apart. I used to work in a garden ctr 20 odd yrs ago and we had both. Now I'm looking at buying a lot in New Orleans with two trees that are definitely either Bald Cypress or Dawn Redwood. Thinking just due to locale that they are cypresses...but I'm not sure. Help me out here!

Dawn redwood foliage is oppositely arranged where bald cypress is a unique spiral.

Dawn redwood needles seem slightly larger also.

Generally I assume bald cypress is what I see as they probably outnumber dawn redwood 10,000 to 1 even in neighborhoods. I know a gal who'se mother has a good fifty foot metasequoia in the yard of a house she just bought though. Quite a bonus.

This is bald cypress with not even a hint of knees anywhere not too far from me in central Texas. It's getting water from underground spring water. Massive BCs there. You'd never think there would be such large trees there due to climate type.

These bald cypress trees tend to have "lava-like" root system over bed rocks nearby springs.

Regarding the distinction between the two, Toronado is correct. It works to easily identify even the tiniest specimens. So, if you see the needles growing opposite each other (in pairs), it's a Dawn Redwood. (See this in the picture in the above post of one in Autumn color.) In Bald Cypress, the needles will grow alternately (not in opposite pairs). Also, as said above, the needles on DR are somewhat longer (and coarser), shorter (and daintier) on BC.

I have a young Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Ogon', located about 40' from a Taxodium distichum and love them together. The 'Ogon almost glows against the full green backdrop of the Taxodium.

Mark

Okay, one additional plus on the DR side. I am siting on my rear deck in plain view of a relatively, recently planted DR. Besides being able to climb it w.i. my lifetime, I notice that the foliage sways and resonants in the wind, much as it did for the running bamboo (which was finally eradicated). Tex, these are two of my favorite trees in the world, no doubt. I get it!

Hi, I'm Randy Allen of middle TN. I have been studying and planting both for about 45 years. My original bald Cypress has been cut due to large size near a house. My Dawn Redwood planted in the 70's is 80' tall and 28" in diameter at breast height. I have planted many DR's through my life, also many BC's. Dawn Redwood is my fav. My Oldest Ogon (yellow leaf) is about 24' tall and 5" dia. I have a TN certified Level 4 Arboretum with numerous of each species. www.WhiteHouseArboretum.com . Call me if you have more questions, I can tell you hours of info about each. smile

I dismissed taxodium distichum because I sincerely doubted I could supply the moisture it needs. Whilst metasquoia is by no means drought resistant, the local Cambridge Botanical Garden (on chalk) has a few great specimens whilst the taxodiums, without saturated soil at least some of the year, struggle....so yeah, a water and drainage issue for me.

It may be more than a water and drainage issue. I recall reading somewhere along the way, that Taxodium evolved in lower subtropical latitudes, and that Metasequoia evolved at higher subarctic latitudes (when the earth was much warmer than now). I wonder if it may be a question of difference in their heat zone requirements.

Taxodiums do have a higher tolerance for strong sun and Metasequoias are more shade tolerant. Campanula, how would you define "saturated soils"? What is your average rainfall? I see posters above posting pics of Taxodium from semi-arid areas (that have summer high heat no less).

Capanula, keep in mind I like metasequoia more. Here is Missouri taxodium does fine in normal sites. Forget what we average but 98 cm of rain yearly seems right and we have some hot and dry times in the summer.

Randy may agree (or disagree). When my metasequoia defoliated during our record hot and dry summer of 2012 I don't recall the slightly larger taxodiums doing the same.

last year I also did some thinking over these two, which one performs better - where... I guess Metasequoia is slightly more popular of the two for some reason though from my experience a bit more needy too. I have one 2.5m + DR planted on site which gets a lot of moisture in wintertime but not so much in summer, especially if summers don't get much rain. and it is in full sun. and in such conditions it struggles at time, never defoliating, but obviously under some stress. then there are several Taxodiums (highest close to 2m's) planted directly in water and on dry land - none shows any signs of struggle at all, no matter of how harsh the conditions get. then I have 3 BC plants and 2 DR (bc 3 years old, dr 2 years old) still in pots, waiting to be planted this year... and the story is similar but it goes even further. I have used all these potted trees in ponds, most of the pot submerged under water so that young turtles could use them as basking sites. and I noticed that DR's became a bit stunned and grew poorly so I ceased this practice and being out of the water they started growing normally again. BC's never cared much about anything and just grew normally wherever. then last year, we had a few very hot summer days (37C or maybe even more) and of course weird things happen when you're not at home, both DR's were toasted, completely brown in a single afternoon and top 20 cm's or so dead. (meaning that almost half of 2 year old plants' height was gone!) both DR's were in half shade, enjoying full sun only in the morning and late evening. in the mean time even potted BC's out of the water in full sun showed no changes at all. Taxodium mucronatum, also 2nd year plant, in full sun showed not a scratch.

Meta's came back eventually, though a little crooked growing, they appear to be waking up slowly just fine now.

Camp, I see you mentioning "chalk" soils. BC is definitely not happy in too-high soil pH, so don't discount that effect.

BC is used as a street tree at least as far north as Milwaukee, WI. In fact, a little further north, as I've seen them in the small town of Cedarburg, perhaps twenty miles north of the bigger city. They seem to do alright, just in regular streetside soil, which can be anything from quite good (older neighborhoods) to atrocious (new developments). I'm sure they're happier in the former situation, as would be any tree.

Taxodium is much hardier. There are old, mature specimens in northern suburbs of Minneapolis. The Metasequoia there get killed or suffer severe dieback every few years. Also, this pattern has been observed in other cold places.

Agreed^.. Back when DR was all the rage, we planted a few in parks, here in Appleton, WI, a few miles SW of Green Bay. They have not been great. Still alive, but plenty of die-back, such that I would not mess with them going forward in this zone. The bald cypresses are better, but in truth, for this far north, in this cold a wintertime climate, the larches are the real deal when it comes to deciduous conifers, and we can grow those better up here than in many points south.

I really can't offer much about data outside Tennessee area. My studies and observations are limited to that area. A few things I'd like to share are

1) From my studies the last 50 years I have found the Ginkgo and the Dawn Redwood to be an excellent match for my climate. They seem to react to weather in an almost exact manner as the native Oaks, Hickories, Beech, Basswood, Black Tupelo's, etc.

2) Back in the mid 1960's I saw my first D R, on my childhood home street of Matthews Drive in Nashville, TN USA. It was already well on its way to being a tall giant in just twenty years since seed introduction to U S. Lightning killed it in the 1970's, as most of our giant oaks die from it. So when yours gets above the neighborhood canopies, please put a lightning cable up it.

My Dawn Redwoods have grown 2 to 4 feet a year, without watering or babying. www.WhiteHouseArboretum.com RA

Um yes, I think the ph is probably more of an issue than water - and mine is quite high. The Cambridge soil, where a few fabulous MG specimens, (planted in 1953) is calcareous - while the MG seem able to cope, the taxodiums were removed in the 70s (I think). One of the garden curators told me that BC are OK in arid areas as long as they get a period of time where the soil was really wet -prefereably spring or autumn - (although I couldn't quite see the rationale since, as far as I know, BC does not store its own water like an adenium or adamsonia) My wood, also calcareous (Norfolk shelly sand and crag) might be a possible place for taxodiums especially since the Yare overtops the banks on my southern edge, every spring high tide...but the soil drains and dries very rapidly.

Larix kaempferi is a disaster in our area though - whole plantations ruined by phytopthera.. but l.decidua might be a doer - should have enough time for a quickie 4 week stratification - get some seeds going by March. Rust is also a bit of a worry though because I think poplar and willow hosts the same rust for larch?. Advice anyone.

In fact, I admit it - I am often floundering about witlessly so please advise and correct this enthusiastic but dilettante tree dabbler now I have....gasp - acreage (5+ acres counts as a whopping great amount of space for a (poverty-stricken) UK gardener.

5 acres is nothing to sneeze at. I had heard of Larix being quite prone to that root rot in your country. Too bad-otherwise such great trees. I have native L. laricina-AKA tamarack-in my woods, but the ones we planted are all that hybrid-Larix marschlinsii. Those so far have been nothing short of amazing. Time will tell and there sure as heck are plenty of aspens in the general area, so if that rust is present, we could be in for trouble on that account. Don't hear about that though, and I subscribe to the forest newsletters, etc. One thing I am waiting for with chagrin is the likely arrival of porcupines, to strip and just generally mess up the tops of my larch and likely, other coniferous species as well. This is said to be a serious issue in some similar parts of the northwoods. I've sure seen them do a number on hemlock.

What trees-for starters-do you see in your area that look healthy and which interest you? That's not the be-all/end-all of the conversation, but it is a good starting point.

My hybrid larch (Euro x Japan) at 20' tall is near death w/something. Someone said root-rot would've killed it
immediately, so not sure what it is. The Japan larch nearby is OK, but
the lowest branches are weak (hope it isn't the same problem). So larch
on my lot is problematic unfortunately. Japan larch below. It had a football-size hornet's nest on the trunk this summer -- had to be careful around it. You can see the ailing hybrid larch (almost bare) to its left in the background. The red tree @ far left is a baldcypress:

Answering Tornado3800 : In my experience you are correct. My DR's, when young and less than say 25' tall and transplanted less than 7 years, do seem to be affected by droughts/heat longer than 4 weeks, A couple out of my 13 planted since 1970's have had tip dieback during that type conditions. But I have never had my old established ones be affected abnormally by any 100 degree temps, droughts, -17 degree F temps, flooding, or any weather here in Nashville TN. BUT, not one of my Bald Cypress's, in water year-round or atop hills on dry land have ever shown signs of suffering during heat and droughts. Strange isn't it, how a swamp tree can take dryness.

Randy, thanks, that DR is awesome....

Agreed-great tree. I guess the answer to the implied question of how "swamp trees" can also do well on higher, well-drained ground is that they are tolerant to the wet conditions and consequently have a competitive advantage over other tree types in that challenging environment, whereas they are typically outcompeted on the better, more well-drained sites, save for where humankind is interfering with the process via protecting certain plants from said competition.

Sorry to see the apparent demise of your hybrid larch, Beng. In my cold, sandy-loam situation where mine are, they seem to excel, but the story ain't over 'til it's over. We shall see. In general, I think where the bulk of mine are planted, the soil is well-drained, although I did spot some down in the lower area just to compare. So far, there's not a bit of difference that I can see with my eyes between the two planting situations. In either case, growth has been rapid. Probably, something like 4000 have been planted so far.

Nice trees Randy!

You are welcome "beng12". It's about 40 years old, Planted in mid 70's. Struck by lightning 4 years ago and still shows scar, but seems to be unaffected otherwise. I can't believe it wasn't killed. 112" around at chest, 92' tall, 70' limb spread. Just a normal resident in a neighborhood planted it in his yard.

On another note, Obion County Tennessee had the largest Bald Cypress in the world, up until a few years ago when it was killed in a storm. But here in middle TN there is a nice one in Hendersonville TN, planted by a homeowner in his back yard in the 1960's. Now it is over 3 ' diameter and over 100' tall, and 80' spread, and going strong, still pyramidal and neat, not becoming unsymmetrical yet.

Which brings about another point. If you plant a DR and want it to really be a specimen tree, you must do 2 things

1) Give it room to spread out 80 dia. with no elec. lines above.

2) do not trim branches from the trunk past waist high. All the experts and greatest arboretums leave the branches low to ground.

Here in TN there is no need to fertilize or change ph or acidity or anything. Just water deep during the first summer if you go more than 3 weeks without a significant rain. All years after, leave it alone.

Randy:

I believe I've seen you and your arboretum on NPT's 'Volunteer Gardener'.

My largest baldcypress, planted at 6' about 28 years ago is around 2' in diameter and 50' plus tall.

For whatever reason, my DR's never grow more than 2' per year. Most are on moist acid soil, and a few are in saturated soil where neighboring BC's make prolific knees. My tallest planted in crowded conditions is probably 70' with no lower limbs.

In a warm winter my BC's will show green buds in Feb,but usually lose them to cold. DR's don't show green till late March-early April. DR is more susceptible to spring frost, drought, and Japanese beetles than BC. In the great Easter freeze of '07 both had foliage and suffered complete foliage loss at temps between 15-20F. There was branch dieback on the lower 10' of DR but none on BC. These trees were c15 years old.

There are a few large old DR's in my rural county, probably because of the nurseries in Warren County. So far the best DR's I know 'personally' are the ones at MoBot. But I don't get around much LOL.

Ken

Cool Ken, yes I was on TV a couple times. I feel like they didn't let me share near enough. The lady did all the talking. smile

Neat to find someone who has some of these two species planted around here also. Wow, it sure did hurt me when on April 6 and 7th of 2007 the temps got so cold. Even some native trees were hurt very bad. I had to replace a few species at my arboretum. But I got lucky with DR's and BC's, it only killed the bursting new growth. Up here near 1000 feet in elevation the temp got down to 17 d F and never got out of 20's for the high. Crazy. What is MoBot you speak of ? P.S. I take that back, I did have a young OGON (Goldrush DR) that was killed to the ground.

The venerable bald cypress tree in Obion County, TN was never truly the largest bald cypress in the world. It was known as the Tennessee Titan and it was indeed a grand specimen, but in truth there were always larger specimens in Louisiana and Florida, and possibly Arkansas and Mississippi.

And the Tennessee Titan has been dead and gone for many years, not just a few. It caught on fire from a lightning strike way back in the '80s, I believe. The tree burned internally within its large hollow from the strike, and eventually a good bit of the top blew off in a storm.

Sounds like you know your stuff. I am surprised someone knew of it as the TN Titan, since our pro football team was not in existence in those days. Back in the late 60's the newspaper articles did not refer to it like that, at least the ones I kept. Depends on which tree rating system you use I guess. I read that the height was what gave it overturning points, along with boardfeet volume. Trees like the Cat Island tree were cool, and huge girthed, but stubby topped. The TN tree was a magnificent long boled tree with great symmetry back then when they said it was biggest. I have been studying trees so many decades, maybe I could be wrong. Thanks for sharing your info. though. Do you know a lot about the giant ones remaining today ? I'd like to hear about them.

The largest cypress I've ever visited was the late, great Senator Cypress in Sanford, FL. It caught on fire and burned down some years ago. The story about how the fire started absolutely infuriates me and I won't go into it here.

Volume should be the measuring stick for the conifers. In terms of volume, the Senator clearly exceeded the other well known bald cypresses in the South, including the Tennessee Titan. I have up close up photos of the Titan and have no doubt about this.

The Titan was still a wonderful tree. The Cat Island, LA trees, which I have visited numerous times, are indeed huge at the base with a very quick taper. IMO, there are several cypress trees at Cat Island that are more impressive than the national champ, which I still suspect is two trees grown together, despite DNA evidence that apparently suggests otherwise.

One of my favorite cypresses for form is the former Mississippi champion at Sky Lake WMA in west central Mississippi. The current Mississippi champion is located within 100 yards of the former champion.

I have not visited the Arkansas champ yet, but from the photos I have it looks very impressive for form.

cypressknee:

The last time I was at Big Tree Park There were several fairly large cypress trees recently planted with signage indicating they were propagations from The Senator. It was the wrong time of year for softwood cuttings. A couple days after The Senator was destroyed, my son, who lived in Lake Mary at the time, called to tell me. I had already heard.

Other than The Senator, the largest cypress I've seen are in Corkscrew Swamp near Naples, FL. They are supposedly 500 plus years old and quite sizable, but nothing like The Senator.

Randy:

MoBot=Missouri (St. Louis) Botanical Gardens.

I think the original DR's are at Arnold Arboretum outside Boston. To think I used to live 4 hours away and never took the time to fight the traffic to go and see them.

Yep, I think they were planted at around the same time as the ones in the Cambridge botanics - 1953 or thereabouts - so they should have some stature by now. Unless we have been scrambling around Chinese valleys, none of us really know what a mature size DR looks like. Dunno if you all got Wollemi fever in the US - we certainly did in the UK (although I gave them a swerve after Norfolk Island Pine fails (several|). What does do very well indeed in East Anglia is the giant redwood, aka Wellingtonia and beloved of our Victorian horticultural forbears...and oddly enough, Tom, is one of the only trees of size where my wood is - a glance on Bing maps would reveal the utter paucity of trees - any trees - in Norfolk wetlands and farm country, apart from oak (q.robur and q.ilex), many willows, poplar and still some residues of alder carr which once comprised the climax vegetation for this whole area.

Something that's interesting is that some older baldcypresses, even in mid-winter in my area, are showing (unopened) male catkins in their upper limbs. Those will bloom surprising early -- March in west MD, long before the last frost.

Randy, MOBOT, the area botanical garden has quite the planting of original to the U.S. era metasequoia. IMO more impressive specimins than Dawes or.....Rowe by Cincy. Although Dawes since has planted more. Seacrest (spelling) by Cleveland had an impressive naturalish planting of them which narrowly survived their tornado a few years back.

I'd be surprised to hear of any BC more impressive than those at Corkscrew Swamp. OK, maybe a single tree somewhere could rival any one of these giants in size, but it is the sheer volume of big trees at CSS that is so impressive. Not to mention, the strangler figs, et al, climbing up for sunlight. Most impressive, and easily one of any tree-lover's must-see stops if in SW Florida.

Camp, if it's redwood that does well there...I guess I'd be planting redwoods! Nothing wrong with that tree, nor, IMO, with planting an obvious exotic in a place like the British Isles, where actual native plant communities have been largely extirpated for what, thousands of years?

Been to CSS and the long boardwalk there.

It is nice, the trees are nice, but the size and age of them don't compare to some other old-growth cypress areas I've been to in the South.