"some sort of cultivar with shorter, almost scale-like needles" - or Pondcypress, perhaps?

Yep, removing the lower branches will reduce the butt swell and 'ropey' fluting.

Crown shape - all of those factors can affect it, but age is the most significant (well, apart from really draconian pruning!).

Height - more likely 40 metres with age. Some are already close to this in just 50 years in some gardens, so are likely to get substantially more, eventually. But in colder regions, may be very slow getting there. Agree, not a houseplant nor easy in a container.

Resin

Not a pond cypress, as far as I know. The needles were actually fairly similar to a standard bald cypress's, except they were kind of curly, giving them a more scale-like appearance. It's sort of hard to describe.

Anyway, if a dawn redwood gets unmangably large, can it be cut back at all? I've heard that in worst case scenarios, you can take the tree down and it should send up new leaders the next growing season as long as you don't, like, mulch the stump or something.

Also, I've heard different information on how well they get along with other nearby trees. What's the minimum distance I could safely plant a dawn redwood from other nearby trees?

I don't know if I've ever seen a picture of one the top's been cut back on. I'm sure they break off and you can do it.

The 60 year old ones I've seen at the Missouri Botanical Garden are not very wide. 25 foot spread seems like a reasonable guess. When "young" like this most seem pyramidal like a cypress or giant christmas tree.

What have you heard goes on with them and other trees? My dawn redwood grows fast so I guess it could be "stealing water" from other stuff.

I have mine planted near the base of a long gentle hill where it has about 40 feet between it and my neighbor's driveway. What's the spot you have for planting like?

Here's a pic I took this year of the half dozen or so big ones at MoBot. Below is a link to a little info on them and other trees.
{{gwi:650330}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Dawn Redwood Fact Sheet

"What have you heard goes on with them and other trees? My dawn redwood grows fast so I guess it could be "stealing water" from other stuff."

I heard they tend to die or been unrobust when crowded, but the ones in that picture are fairly close together.

When you say 25 foot spread, is that in diameter, or is that 25 feet in both directions?

The spot I'm looking at is about 30 feet from any large trees, although the large tree that's near by is a honey locust that's got a fairly broad canopy. The trunks would be pretty far apart, though. There are a few other trees (Three?) that are a bit closer, but they're pretty small, and at least one of them's going to be coming down eventually, and another one's also fairly likely to come down. It's not particularly close to any power lines or important structural things. There's grapevince trellis SOMEWHAT nearby, but the ground's sort of warped there and that's probably going to get moved anyway.

I'd have to get some actual measurements, though. In any case, there's nothing that I could really see causing a problem in like, the next decade or so, I guess.

Got it (Eight foot tree for 55 dollars seemed reasonable enough) and put it on the other end of the yard, where it's generally farther away from everything. Height and trunk width really shouldn't be problematic there, and... foliage width would only get problematic if it got particularly wide.

Not sure what the cultivar is. It's got pretty erect branches and looks sort of like the Sheridan Spire that PlantFiles has listed, and the leaves are bright green, although I don't think to the level where it's likely to be a golden dawn or gold rush or whatever.

I'm sure you'll love it. All that "rediscovery" stuff makes for as interesting conversations about trees you can ever get non-tree ppl involved in.

Usually round here if someplace is selling a patented cultivar of a tree they list it proudly and charge proudly for it.

Post some pics and updates!

Hopefully I didn't overfertilize it when I planted it. The soil around here isn't particularly rich, nor was the soil it came in, so trees here do tend to need some stuff added to the soil, except I wasn't exactly sure how much I needed to use and had to eye-ball it a bit.

Also might need to water it again. It was fairly dry (Which is odd. It was outside at the nursery and, uh, we've gotten a ton of rain lately). Also not sure how long it was in the container, so I hope the root systems okay.

I took these pictures at night so the foliage looks a bit yellower/glowier than it really is.

http://photos-014.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v283/1/64/20924014/n20924014_36203516_9369.jpg

There doesn't seem to be a... hrm... dominant apical bud? It just kind of branches about halfway up the trunk, and it doesn't look like a former growing tip was clipped to induce this or anything. Are dawn redwoods just branchy by nature?

http://photos-014.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v283/1/64/20924014/n20924014_36203517_9662.jpg

Detail.

http://photos-014.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v283/1/64/20924014/n20924014_36203518_9961.jpg

Leaves.

http://photos-014.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v283/1/64/20924014/n20924014_36203519_267.jpg

More leaves.

Also, a bit curious for future purposes when I move somewhere else, but I've heard it's fairly easy to grow these from cuttings -- how would I go about taking one? Also heard these are monoecious, produce cones after a few years, and are easily grown from seed too.

I've heard that if you grow from cuttings, you won't get the root flare, buttressing, or "knees" as with seedgrown - same for baldcypress.

I think I might have to dig this up, widen the hole its planted in, and do some root pruning. In regards to root pruning, how should it be done? It sounds like you just make three or so vertical slashes about an inche deep down the rootball to get rid of excessive outer roots that were circling the container, and then do a cross slash about an inche deep against the bottom of the rootball, from what I've read, but I'm not entirely sure, especially in regards to the last step. I don't think there's any trunk girdling as of yet, but I don't want it to become a problem down the road.

Argh. No way to edit posts, is there?

Anyway, I took it up for a bit tonight to check out the roots. It was pretty root bound, but most of the roots were either thick, spongy, and pliable, or fibrous. I'd actually say the majority were fibrous. There were some thicker, woodier roots, but not all that many, and only a few had started wrapping around the pot from what I could tell. Some were at oddish angles, but growing mostly normally. As for the ones that were wrapping, I cut those back to where it looked like they were straigtening out, which wasn't too far. Other than that, I just used the guidelines about making one-inch cuts down the side of the rootball, then tried to shake stuff loose a bit. Don't know how much it'll help or hurt, really. From what I could tell, it didn't look like there were any thick, wrapping roots growing near the trunk, in any case.

I got a theory going that if you water by hand just at the base of the trunk you encourage root growth just there. Accordingly if you water the area around the tree you encourage it to grow roots outwards to get that water.

Just a theory though. Maybe I'll test it out in houseplants or something.

I've heard that too, which is why you build up soil/mulch cones to direct the water away from the existing rootball, I guess. The thing was pretty dry so I had to water it evenly, but I'm also putting water outside of the original rootball, and I'll eventually move to doing just that.

Dug down to the root flare. And by dug I mean I pulled away a few inches of soil with my fingers. Soil's not really even yet so I'll have to fill in the hole with small stones* or something to keep the soil from collapsing back in, but everything looks good. Only found two or three wrapping roots, and only one of which looked particularly troublesome. Also found one of those roots that comes out of the stem a ways up. I didn't cut it yet because it's just sort of juts out and goes down in the soil away from the main rootball.

* Given that dawn redwoods are okay with standing water, if the depression floods briefly from time to time, as long as it dries out, I don't imagine there'd be a problem, right? The main problem with an unexposed root flare, from my understanding, is poor oxygen... contact all the time, microbes in the soil, and root constriction?

On a newly planted tree you do need to water close to the stem/original root ball when you water, especially just after planting. Root growth is most active during the fall so your tree won't have any roots really going out into the native soil yet. All of the moisture needs for the tree are being taken from the original root ball so you need to ensure that there is sufficient moisture at the root ball for the tree to use.

Also keep the surrounding soil moist since the roots will start to grow into the native soil, but probably not enough roots will be in the native soil until the tree has been in the ground through two fall seasons.
My .02
tl³

I just lost a twelve foot tall dawn redwood that was spending it's first year in the ground. I donated it some folks and they didn't water it enough, I just saw it a week ago and it was fried to a crisp, completely dry in the oakland heat. I was pissed. Idiots. I love them, but they are idiots.

Truth be told, I haven't been watering it much because we've been getting severe thunderstorms pretty much nightly. At that, it's good these trees are pretty wind tolerant. Or so I hear, at least. Mine hasn't completely fallen apart, despite being shaped funny and not really having much protection.

That's bad your friends killed that one tree. I gave a little snake plant to someone for a gift exchange this Christmas past. I always wonder if it survived. I know it's a snake plant but some of these people worry me.

I don't get people in Maryland that don't water newly planted trees (we get rain but in summer we might go three weeks with nothing, then get a deluge) let alone dry-summer climates like California.

Growth seems like it's been kind of slow. The smaller, immature-looking needles at the terminal buds aren't really growing much, as far as I can tell. Still coping with transplanting, or would most of the growth come later in the season?

Also, I'm seeing brown spots on the needles. Sort of suspecting japanese beetles, as I've seen them crawling on it. It's not too bad so far, but if it gets worse, is it safe to spray dawn redwoods down with... something?