welcome to the website. You'll love the advice from some of the experts around here.

Do you frequently visit any areas in the more temperate zones? I was thinking shipping a tree that size could be a little expensive, BUT if you were renting a van and driving someplace anyways.....

Give it a shot on the south or SE coast of Lake Michigan or Lake Erie in a protected spot. I have a sequoia in a pot and will have to make the same kind of choice in a few years.

Bill

Coastal Southern Virginia is about the furthest north I would mess with. You could contact the William and Mary College in Williamsburg and wiggle through the bureaucracy and see if they'll take it. I think they've got some growing there already.

OR try posting an ad on craigslist in Coastal North Carolina/South CArolina/Southern Virginia Cities. I'm not familiar with this area of the country though so you'd have to look on a map and find the biggest city, see if it's got a craigslist.org listing, etc.

Or you could just keep pruning the hell out of it and keep it small, but that's a sad fate for a tree that wants to grow big.
Good luck.

"Give it a shot on the south or SE coast of Lake Michigan or Lake Erie in a protected spot. I have a sequoia in a pot and will have to make the same kind of choice in a few years."

-----These areas are zone 6 at best, tolerable to a sequoiadendron (with the result being much slower growth rates) but not to a sequoia, which requires zone 8 at least and hardly tolerates frost, not to mention temps as low as -12 to -20 Centigrade. Sequioa Sempervirens are much less hardy.

There is a nice coastal redwood growing in Arlington, VA, (just outside D.C.)Z7. This tree is about 40 feet tall, over 12 inches in diameter, and looking great. But it may have been planted after the last real cold spell in that area, which I think was around 1987. It got to something like 8 below that winter.

I am in Winchester, VA, a warm Z6. I would love to have your tree, but I think I am just a bit outside the area where it would be worth a try.

Also, I wonder if all strains have the same cold hardiness.

--Spruce

There is also a tree at Swarthmore College, PA, planted in the 1930s, probably. This is now the "Swarthmore Hardy" strain sold by Forestfarm. Although probably just in zn 7a, that part of SE PA has undoubtedly been well below 0F, as has Arlington VA. (and Silver Spring, MD, where there is another 40'+ S. s.) Its possible the 30 yr. record lows for these areas are not much milder than the 30 yr. record lows for the mildest shores of the Great Lakes.

I'd try it in the mildest Michigan/Great Lakes zone you can find...why not? Of course there is also the matter of finding a cooperative gardener in such an area. The catalogs of Arrowhead Alpines report that there used to be large Nothofagus in Ann Arbor before the city cut them down - they come from a similar climate. (Although of course, all things being equal a deciduous tree has less to cope with when planted in a colder climate than its own)

Just because something has "once survived" a certain low temp does not mean it should planted in this area. Zone 7 is much, much different than a zone 6, especially one in the snow shadow of lake michigan. ANd it's not just the cold, it's the EXTREMELY STRONG, DRYING winds that will be delivering the beating. Leave the "experimenting" up to the silviculturalists, etc.

Sequoiadendron can technically "survive" some chicago winters (like last's, which didn't drop below 0 F), but it doesn't THRIVE here. It begrudgingly makes it, with a lot of discoloration and haggard-ness.

If you plant a sequoia in Michigan, it will most likely die. NO doubt. If somehow, the region gets a mild winter with no prolonged temps below 15 F and it happens to survive, it will not thrive. It's not just the cold, either, that will hurt it, it's the extremely HOT temps during the summer, as well.

If you're feeling like taking a gamble at the risk of throwing away a tree you've held onto for years, go ahead. But know that odds (and plant physiology) are against you.

If you want it to survive, thrive, and outlive you...PLANT IT SOMEWHERE IT'LL BE HAPPY!

3...2...1

Well Sequoia stiffy, why don't you drive to Michigan and pick it up?

In all seriousness, it probably will die, but the poster was looking for a way to dispose of it. Since it is rather large and expensive to move, planting it is as good as throwing it away, wouldn't you agree? Although I bet it would make a nice mulch if ground up.

Your fundamental statement about S.s. is quite simply wrong though: "which requires zone 8 at least"

Wrong. Let me repeat in case you missed that: wrong. There is a tree is Swarthmore PA which is a fairly cold zn 7. There is a tree in Silver Spring Maryland which has often seen well below 0F. There are 2 trees in Williamsburg, a solid 7b, which I personally saw showing no sign of injury after 0F and weather so cold every pond and fountain in Williamsburg was frozen solid and safe to walk on. How cold do you think the Coast Ranges were during the last ice age? Were you there? Were the coast ranges somehow not connected to North America 10,000 years ago, and have stealthily slipped back in touch with the continent in the past 1000 years? Are you sure it didn't get down to 0F anywhere that S. s. grows? Do you know it got to 12F in Walnut Creek, not far from San Francisco, as recently as 1990?

I am a realist but will vigorously correct any chauvinistic assumptions about plant survivability on these forums. Why, pray tell, should "experimenting" be left up to anybody in particular? Silviculturalists, if you bother to look the word up, are probably more interested in maintaining forests that already exist than finding out how long it takes a redwood to die in Michigan. The original poster is free to do what he wants with his plant. He can spend $1000 to ship it somewhere it will grow, true. He can throw it away or grind it up for mulch. If those options are ruled out, planting it is about all that is left. (some tender plants could presumably be donated to a mall or conservatory, but I doubt there are many that would have the right climate, never mind the space, for a redwood)

hello, I live in Poland, I saw this year in the Berlin Dahlem (Germany) Sequoia sempervirens - height of 10 m. in very good condition. Survived frosts around -22 C, Zone 7. Perhaps these are some resistant variety. I live 100 km east of Berlin - I have small (1 m) plants and survived the winter of -26 degrees of frost! I have also a variety 'Adpressa' is apparently even more resistant to frost but is growing less (to 8 meters).
As for the Seqoiadenron giganteum oldest tree is more than 80 years and 38 m. high, certainly survived -32 degrees celcjusza!

Grzegorz

To tell you the truth, a tree that tall grown in a pot would worry me. I think it could be root-bound and I'd rather not mess with that. So even if I could somehow come get it, it would not be the sort of thing I'd mess with.

I am, of course, trying Swarthmore Hardy in my garden, but the ones I have now are very small and it will be a few years before I plant them outside.

I will say I have no doubt these will not be as easy to grow around here as say, Loblolly pines. Camellia Forest nursery in NC lost their plant last summer to a drought - I'm sure when getting established, a process which will take some years, they are not going to be as drought tolerant as our native conifers.

Still, someone near you might want that tree, for who knows what reason. Ebay is the best way to publicize something like that. Auction it and say, "available for pickup only." I can imagine some far-fetched scenarios: a museum in Chicago wants a live redwood for some temporary exhibit. Your would be a little cheaper than bringing one in from California. You tree will die in the end, but it will have had a useful life if some people got to enjoy it.
(is it nice enough looking to make a very upscale Christmas tree LOL?)

Good luck.

"Sequoiadendron can technically "survive" some chicago
winters (like last's, which didn't drop below 0 F), but it doesn't THRIVE here. It begrudgingly makes it, with a lot of discoloration and haggard-ness."

every Sequoiadendron I've seen on the East Coast, even in mild places and after mild winters, has a lot of "discoloration and haggard-ness". (I do not know if this is true of the large trees in NY & PA because I have not seen them) They dislike our hot humid summers and I think that is why they look that way here. Granted it could happen from cold as well.

"hurt it, it's the extremely HOT temps during the summer, as well. "
Nope sorry wrong again. You are close to 0 for 3. There is a > 90' tree in Abbeville, SC. IF you don't think Abbeville SC is hot in summer, I invite you to show up in your Bay Area turtle neck and sweater in August and try to sleep in a tent. I'll even let you find a nice spot in the shade of the redwood.

Obviously, lightning and high winds will keep a redwood from ever getting very tall in the Southeast. That is a realistic assumption.

So, who's on first?

We're talking about two different trees, here. Coastal sequoias, or Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) will not survive in Michigan.

Giant sequoias (sequoiadendron) will survive in Michigan given the right location. A 100-foot sequoia is thriving in Manistee on the Lake Michigan waterfront, along with three others. There are two 20-foot giant sequoias on the campus of Michigan State University, in the heart of mid-Michigan.

BigBird, our nation's southern East Coast would be fine for your tree. If you really want to take a chance, I've come to find out that the warmest place in Michigan is the southeast corner of our state (Monroe) near Lake Erie.

Best of luck in placing your tree.

David, you need a hobby or somethin? You seemed to have sat there for a while concocting that up. I'm flattered that I struck a note with you enough that you feel you have to personally insult me based on some weird thing you have with the bay area (I'm from chicago), but it's kind of pathetic in the end. You recently get laid off or something?

Sure, it could survive in Z7, it's not going to like it. Why risk planting a tree somewhere where it could die in 6 years when the next unusually bitter winter creeps up? Not worth it. Dude said he was willing to transport it out of state, so...Better luck planting it somewhere it'll be happy, which in this case the closest place would be the SE coast.

Christ. I'm not sure why I'm so good at pissing off all the people with Napoleon Complexes on this forum but I'm starting to get tired of it.

Also, because something has ONCE survived a certain low temp, doesn't mean it's hardy there during prolonged lows. IN the case of walnut creek (suburb in the bay area), etc. getting down to a once-in-a-while all-time low overnight of 12 F is a lot different from 6-7 weeks of constant temps that low. It got below freezing last year in Roseville/Sacramento too, for a period of about eight hours, but many plants which are not hardy down to that temperature survived it, too.

We can argue about this all we want, but the fact a nursery feels that a tree that survives zone 7B is exotic enough to make a cultivar of should tell you something...It's unusual.

Reports vary but Sequoia Sempervirens is listed as zone 8 (down to 10 F).

As far as the root-bound thing goes, I would by no means condemn the tree based on that. When you transplant the thing, though, just make sure you spend a good ten minutes untangling and unwrapping the roots/pruning the roots where you need to (best to not do more than you need to though so you don't stress the thing out too much. Trees don't like having their roots messed with).

B.Bird - Good luck.

David, I'm patiently awaiting your whiney, over-sensitive response. Maybe I'll get the magic three posts again.

Ok, so now die volk have to resort to anthropomorphization.

"Sure, it could survive in Z7, it's not going to like it."

It's not going to "like it"? Is it going to file a case reaching the Supreme Court because its rights to cool summers were denied? Obviously you won't give up on this point, but once more time for posterity: the question is whether it will survive for a reasonable length of time in some zn 7 East Coast conditions. (Swarthmore is not the Southeast. That would get some real laughs in Parish Hall.) The answer is it will, therefore SOME CLONES are zn 7 plants. ALSO for the record Dr. Micheal Dirr, (is the horse dead yet?) a conservative zone assigner if there ever was one, calls some clones of redwood zn 7 hardy.
Since you are as accomplished in the field of horticulture as he is, I invite you to email him with a suggestion that he correct his website, and see what he says:
http://www.virtualplanttags.com/vpt.asp?pID=38781&co=410087&cID=669&pr=1

[I would further define reasonable as "the length of time a similar class of horticultural material would last in a landscape." Few trees on the East Coast, especially an urban area like Silver Spring or Arlington, routinely lasts for centuries. I'd guess a typical tree in the suburbs lasts about 50 years. Therefore my reasonable length of time is 50 years, not the potential 1000+ year lifespan of a redwood in its home environment.]

Look. To anybody with true critical reasoning skills - a dwindling portion of the population - I have won this battle handily. I actually do have a job, a very good one, as us pesky people with critical reasoning skills are still in great demand. Therefore I probably shouldn't waste my time anymore giving a flip and arguing about how hardy plants are here. For years I've had to correct the idiot naysayers on this plant and others. (even Pineresin got a chuckle out of the fool who was calling it zn 9 hardy) Maybe today I will officially retire. Or maybe I'll just join with the mindless borg and start the trolling: "Monkey Puzzles just can't possibly grow on the East Coast because it is hot and humid and their native climate is cool and dry. No plant possibly survives in a climate other than its own because there's never been any global-scale climate change and every plant enzyme in every plant in the world evolved only to operate at a specific range of temperatures." LMAO!

My effort to prove it was "zn 7 East Coast" hardy WAS related to the question of whether it could grow in the mildest climate of Michigan. According to the controversial 2003 zone map, a tiny area of Allegan (?) Co. Michigan is zone 7. I do have that map handy and had consulted it before I posted, but should have cited it. Granted, as I've said, this map is controversial but has proven to be more accurate with our continued mild winters than the 1990 map.

http://www.ahs.org/pdfs/USDA_Map_3.03.pdf

I agree that in that area, it might need the windbreak of a 15 story building...are there any in Allegan County? I said nothing about it not needing a 15 story building as a windbreak!

Yo, dave. Settle down. Pour yourself a drink and relax. You're getting kind of pathetic. I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Granted it's winter and I could sit here for hours (like you seem to be doing with your five posts on this subject in a span of six hours), but I'm done with it.

I believe the gentleman has had his questions answered. Finis. The end.

I suggest you let it go. Go buy a punching bag with the silhouettes of Alameda and San Francisco Counties painted on it and take care of that aggression of yours. I'm not going to engage you on internet beef any further. Good night.