So the handful I started inside didn't make it - I think it was just too dry, plus I think a few had damping-off. However, I just started about 25 of them, in a rootmaker cell tray (the 36-cell tray). I just threw about 35 of them on a shallow bed of moist peat, in a bowl with a lid. All but 10 sprouted a radicle, this time, in about 6 days at ambient temps in the upper 70s (bedroom that gets hot from the sun in the window). Last time ambient temps were about 68 - temperature seems to make a big difference. They're now outdoors in the tray, one seed per cell - I only planted the ones that had some semblance of a root starting to emerge. Highs have been mostly 60s and lows 40s. If we do get a freeze I'll bring them in for the night, but we'll see what happens. How big should I expect them to get by summer's end? Maybe 12-18 inches? It seems they start fairly slowly, but then start growing more rapidly after a couple months from what I see here on GW.

noki, I am only keeping 3 or 4 of them. The rest will be planted at a friends' house this fall. The remainder I will probably overwinter in the containers, possibly even potting up once they need it, since we're probably buying land to build a new home on, so I'll be planting them at the new house sometime next year. tlbean, this is apparently what Metasequoia does. A couple other posters who've grown them from seed said this is exactly what they do - about 18-24" the first year from seed. I have them growing in a slightly modified version of Al's 5-1-1 mix (from the Container Gardening forum) using Dynamite controlled-release fertilizer and a few shots of Foliage Pro earlier this summer.

My Eastern redbuds ( I have two, volunteers from a neighbor's tree) were looking good, all full of blooms and tender new leaves just starting to emerge. The cold this weekend zapped all of the leaves; I am hoping they will recover. Not sure about the ash trees - bummer, Zach - but the oak will recover I am sure. The leaves on the trees in my Gambel's oak "grove" still look good, and my Mongolian Oak, that often gets zapped by a late freeze, looks fine as well. This freeze was late enough that the leaves weren't so new and tender...but even when the leaves get totally wiped out, a fresh new flush of them comes out, so I am thinking the Gambel's will do the same thing. And maybe the Ash trees will as well - it is amazing what plants can go through and still survive, although that apparently doesn't apply to fruit trees when the fall is warm and they still haven't gone into dormancy in November. :-( Holly

I think that nonsense. True-planting trees too deeply is a huge issue and far too commonplace, but again, the bad results of doing so manifest slowly. I'm talking years. Those guys gave you a bum steer. Incidentally Allyson-don't know if I've mentioned this already or not-but in balled and burlapped stock, and even in some containerized, the "top of the rootball" is not a true guide to planting depth. Let's take the B&B case: The trees are initially grown in rows in a nursery field somewhere. Periodically, cultivating equipment is run down between the rows to control weeds. In the process, soil gets heaped up and around the trees. Then later, when they are dug, what is now a tree with potentially quite a bit of soil heaped up around it is taken as "the height it grew at in the nursery". But of course, this is not so, the soil having been placed there via this cultivation. We don't plant all that many B&B trees these days, but back when we did, it was commonplace to have to shave a great deal of soil off the top of the ball to find the root flare. I still remember one large honeylocust-the root flare was buried more than a foot down into the top of the ball! So that is no guide at all. One simply must find that swollen area of root flare, taking care to not confuse the graft union-yet another are of swollen tissue-for this root flare. That, of course, on grafted trees only. In any case, what those guys told you is surely rubbish, probably intended to cover up the fact that they didn't know or care enough to insure that each customer takes their trees home well-protected for the trip. +om