Before I yard planted metasequoia in Texas I would compare the climate to what St Louis had last year. Our record setting heat and drought, which might be normal for your area, would probably have killed my decade old metasequoia if not for this ridiculously heavy watering schedule I went to. Now it was rough on many of our natives also and maybe mine was just acclimated to the climate it knew its whole life, but I don't know how much heat and drought metasequoia is built for.

In very cold climates the hardwoods don't do as well as conifers. In the far north of Canada as you approach the tundra and artic circle, fir and spruce become the dominant species although eventually they reach their limit and appear stunted. Along the south-east coast (South Carolina, Georgia, and into Florida), Pines do better where the soils are very sandy, but hardwoods still eventually crowd them out. I am not familiar with the Pine barons in NJ but assume it's very sandy acidic soils which Pines like. Pines down south tend to be first generation reforestation trees aka pioneer species. Most of the areas you pointed out have been heavily logged several times over the last 200-400 years and the first trees to regenerate naturally (assuming there's a seed source) are pioneer species such as Loblolly pine, or long leaf pine. In the Appalachians its typically a mix of Tulip Poplar, Birch, and White Pine. Those trees eventually are crowded out (except the Tulip Poplar). At one point the American Chestnut was the dominant climax species in the Appalachians along with Oaks, but the Chestnut blight (came from China) wiped out 10's of millions of those trees and they are virtually extinct (although their has been ongoing research for the past 25 years to develop a hybrid resistant to the blight). Hardwoods eventually succeed any pines as the mature forest trees (Oaks, Hickories, Maples, etc.). I studied silviculture. Up north you will often see White pine intermixed with hardwoods but never the dominant species and where they are dominant, it's only temporary. These areas typically have had flash burns in the past. I am curious how Dawn Redwoods will compete with other hardwoods in a natural forest setting. Do they start seeding out or do they behave like ornamentals and simply live through their life cycle without producing offspring and eventually die out.

Keeping a dawn redwood inside during the winter is a very bad idea for two reasons...first, without winter dormancy induced by change in photoperiod and especially temperature, your d.r. will simply stop grwing around january and begin to look sick and ugly. You can remedy this by throwing it in the fridge for three weeks once it has stopped growing, and then taking it out and placing in a sunny window. If it is already dormant, it will need a good three to four eeks of cold temps and low light levels. However, experience dictates that unless you have a brightly lit greenhouse or expensive sodium light, than growth indoors, with low indoor light conditions (even a bright sunny south facing window is still pretty low on light energy required for growth, light drastically tapers off as distance from the window increases) is always going to be far inferior and unhealthy looking to full bodied light outside. The seedling will only grow on the side that faces the window, will be weak and leggy and more susceptible to croaking in the first year, etc. My advice is to just plant it out, mulch, maybe some grate fencing, and wait for spring. Then water non stop. It is IMPOSSIBLE to overwater this species and it will thank you for it.

I know of specimen trees in Iowa City, IA; Milwaukee and Wisconsin Dells, WI for certain. There was one gardenweb member, TreeLover, that is in Minnesota, zone 4a, that claims this species has been growing just fine for him for a decade. Whether or not there is some twig dieback or it is growing into tree form there was no comment...