Tends to do well most places the soil is moist and the summers warm enough. If it is on the cool side for it there it will probably still grow, just not as fast and as big as if it were a hot summer climate area.

Was first seen by westerners growing on rice paddies in the native area.

During the Great Gale pretty much no established redwoods (or ginkgoes) blew over, during winds that knocked down numbers of examples of other kinds of trees.

Typically found on shady, moist sites such as ravines and stream banks.

http://conifers.org/cu/Metasequoia.php

I am imagining a climate like London's where winter isn't soo cold and summer not so hot. My guess is it does fine.

If it is super windy maybe you'll have some leader damage when it grows up high enough. Mine has had that. It will most likely releader on its own. Over 12 years mine has probably lost out on 6 feet of top height thanks to this sonit is a bit stouter than tall and skinny but not oddly so.

Why not try a small one and stake as needed?

"I am imagining a climate like London's"

Unfortunately, 900 ft. of elevation in NW Ireland is going to have summers a lot chillier and gloomier than even London's. Look at Derry, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry  Summer max average of 66F! They will, however, grow in the climate of the British Isles...it certainly wouldn't have been awarded the AGM if it struggled due to the cool summers. During the ice ages - and that species has survived many - China wasn't covered in ice but it surely had chillier summers. I just expect it to grow somewhat slowly compared to an area with warm, wet summers: for people with smaller gardens, that would actually seem an advantage. In favorable parts of the US, they grow alarmingly quickly. My 'Ogon' (3 ft. to almost 25 ft. in 5 years...and it is slower than the straight species) can easily harden a secondary flush of growth that starts in early September: the amount of warmth and sun I have from mid Sept to mid Nov is probably roughly similar to what the OP gets from mid April to mid October!

It seems to be pretty widely adapted, one of the bigger dawn redwoods outside of the native area is in New Zealand, mentioned on the page I linked to above.

Here in my cool and dull part of the US - where our general conditions are more like those of Britain than most of the rest of the country - an example of the tree planted in a ravine in Tacoma was 100 ft. tall some years ago.

The 2002 edition of The Hillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs (Hillier Nurseries) has an entire paragraph about how the species has grown quickly and easily in both North America and Britain since its introduction, even growing well in industrial areas, and so on. It also says

It thrives best in moist but well-drained conditions. On chalk soils it is slower-growing.

Thank you everyone for your positive replies, it looks like I will give it a go and we will see, it will be interesting to compare the two.It will be nice to have something a little more unusual.

Tornado, davidrt28 is pretty much spot on comparing here to Derry, mild wet windy winters and cool damp humid summers, the record high temp was 33.3 C/ 91.94 F and that sort of heat doesn't happen too often and the lowest minimum was -19.1 C/-2.38F. For a small island we can have vastly different weather to the east or the south. Good to know about the possible leader damage I will keep an eye out for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland

I will order the DR and I will come back and give some updates on their progress.

Thanks again

Denis

Just so people know, Mountain Man was posting the records for the entire Emerald Isle. His location has probably never been near 33.3C. Must be nice. That's an average warm summer day here. We've probably never had a summer that stayed below 33.3C/91F! It's actually surprising where that -19.1 C record is located, so near the coast. It must be a particularly bad cold air trap.

One of my parent's friends growing up was an Irishwoman whose father had been a aid worker/doctor in Africa. She told me how they would bring seeds back from Kenya and manage to sometimes grow the plants in Dublin!

David, no not quite that hot but I did record a 30 C back in 2013 by my uncalibrated weather station so not official. the -19.1C was recorded about 10 miles from where I live it is a shallow river valley so not too bad of a frost hollow, at that time there were very few people recording the weather, a hobby of the gentry (also astronomy). It could have been colder in places where no one was recording.

The costal areas are zone 9 and the extreme south west zone 10, there are some sub tropical gardens down south on islands such as Garnish Island and on the mainland. Dublin would be a great place to garden, with the heat island effect too growing exotics would be feasible, there is an excellent botanical garden there too.

Good luck with your Metasequoia, let us know how they do.

I planted my DR yesterday and today as I was washing the pot for reuse I noticed that it had a small label stating that it is a cultivar called 'Chubby', after a quick google it seems this is a smaller, slow growing form to approx 3.5m in 10yrs. I am not finding much else about it, all the descriptions on various sites seem to be the same word for word. does any one know any more about it?

If it does stay small I may move it out of the prime real estate spot I have allotted it.

The other DR for my sister came today(along with some other goodies) and I'll be planting it in the next couple of days,

I found this snippet of info from Edwin Smits on Planet conifer fb group, "It was found as a witches' broom in Boskoop (NL) by Hanno Hardijzer en Piet van Leijden. It won a Silver Medal at the Dutch Groot Groen Exhibition in 2008. This cultivar is patented.

I am guessing that there is little info about this one as it is quite a new one and is a suck it and see situation.

Some nursery is probably upset they mailed you a Chubby for the regular price and honestly you deserve what you thought you bought. I would tell the nursery so they can double check their quality control. You MIGHT be able to score a regular one for half price from them also. They might think they sent u the rarest thing in the world and kick themselves btw.

Tornado, it was from a typical garden centre not a nursery and was on the 50% off bench!,I'm half convinced that they thought it was dead, I got it for $14 which I guess is pretty good for something quite unusual (for here at least). The tie on label was missing with just the elastic strap left, its my problem I didn't see the small label on the pot and never thought for one second that they would have something more unusual, their typical fare is Pansies, spray painted heathers, yuk, I'm sure you know the sort of place. I will probably order another from the nursery I ordered my sister's from.