There is hope! First, I recommend what Theryl said. Ferns and sorrel in the full shade. I might do ginger on my side yard but have not done so yet. I add ROCKS!. Dry river bed is a great way to add interest and it doesn't use water. Another plus, it can act as a swale. Follows is what we've accomplished in 10 months from nothing but trees and dirt to now. I am from TX and only gardened here for a year so I know something can be done. I'd never seen a redwood or anything so competitive. I am from the land of solid limestone and 90 days of over 100 heat; the land of 17 inches of rain in 2 years that only ends with flash floods that float your car; the land of thorns and poison and venom. I find redwoods every bit as challenging despite the beauty and 'lushness' of California. There's a reason redwoods are a surviving species! They are fit! Thanks to Kelly Marshall for guiding me at the beginning. We trimmed up our redwoods at our newly bought house that sit on a 45 degree pitch hill. Did so for light and fire. We have minimal soil, lots of redwood root competition, and little sun. Started with nothing but the trees. One part gets afternoon sun. In the "dark" I have dry riverbed and boulders with pockets for ferns that add interest. I have woodland strawberry that surprisingly works in a variety of areas. I have several native ferns up there. The competition was too much for native ribes and carpenteria even in the flats where the azalea has made it. The vaccinum ovatuum languishes as well. In the flats with dappled light I have azaleas in the ground and begonias in a pot and am considering a big pot with a Japanese maple. Anything within 7 feet of the redwood trunks on the hill struggle terribly. They suck up water like mad so go with plants that need minimal water. I hand water ferns once a week in summer and irrigate twice a week doing 3 rounds of short bursts each day of irrigation (2 days, 3 programs each day so as to not have run off on that hill. this hill is clay, My steeiest hill is super friable and another story) . In the areas that get afternoon sun I accent it with what will survive the competition: monkeyflower, Douglas Iris, Wayne Roderick Daisies, coyote mint. All pollinators as well. Have some manzanita to left as well as some full sun areas for pollen plants. CA agriculture has left us devoid of pollinators due to chemicals and non-natives. The succulent vignette is not with natives and was created by carving into the hill and stair stepping small shallow pond/fountain liners (Lowes), rocks and ferns with creeping geraniums (geranium macrorhizum from Berk. Hort) around it. The roots should leave the stuff in the pond liners alone but might the succulents might have made it without the protection - ? I just wanted to assure the planting was stable on the steep hillside. I wanted to assure enough aeration for succulent roots and I wanted planting pockets. Hope the photos show up well. As time goes by I will continue to experiment. Win some lose some but that's gardening. I am trying silver falls/pony foot/silver dichondra argentae (whatever locals call it) and succulents along the dry river bed. Just keep tucking and trying. Do NOT prune up redwood branches too radically or cut them down because they will strive to recur and grown tons of fronds from the bottom. Slowly but surely you will have something that excites you. AS for the guy that originally posted, hanging planters off the deck would help his situation. Don't always have to plant in the ground. Succulent vignette. The Douglas Iris is in front and has some brown leaves now. You can't see the blue green of the succulents but they excite the area and seem to get enough sun in the late day to make it OK. There are smallish boulders from American Soil supporting it all and hiding the pond liner. I can roll rocks but for the most part I used my husband. Dan Fix Landscaping installed my river bed (excellent).

At the far north end of the range the redwoods are expected to maintain themselves indefinitely, and where present are dominating the stand(s) - but there is more competition from other species. There is effectively no sexual reproduction of coast redwood there, western hemlock coming up abundantly instead. So, it appears the redwood does not spread north because of the native environment being too suitable for sexual reproduction of competing species and quite unsuitable for its own seedlings. We were taught by the man who wrote the book that the limiting factors in its native range: to the north, fire and inland-south, water. The ice age migrations have rearranged species distribution such that the native ranges have settled to places that rarely get really cold, so we are now experimenting in ornamental plantings to determine cold fitness. But we know the redwoods migrated south into MX to find temps in the range to which it is adapted, rather than, say, migrating upward like many trees did in the Marble Mt Wilderness-Siskiyou ranges to escape the ice and cold-dryness. Resin, I'm sure I have a paper like that around, but we know the planet is warming and will continue to do so as we burn fossil fuels, so its a good bet that 500-year cold events are becoming less likely. Dan

" I wonder how one would do in pure muck soil where taxodium grow, if inland enough where saltwater flooding isn't a problem." Not well! It would last about a week in summer before the root rots would take it out! In the rest of the southeast where they do grow, they definitely only grow on well drained soils. I have had one die from root rot. In spite of being hexaploid, they are not invincible. FWIW, there's a 'trick' about the PNW - coastal CA climate. I saw rhododendrons almost in the bottom of swales at the old Greer Gardens in Eugene, OR.* You would NEVER see them growing somewhere like that in PA, NJ, or MD. But...the time plants like rhodies and redwood are most susceptible to root rot organisms is in the summer. That's when most of those disease organisms grow best...at temps >= 15C. I see redwoods in the native environs growing in soil that appears year round damp, but guess what? It's only going to be inundated with water, during California's wet winters! Likewise with the rhodies that would experience wet (but not underwater, mind you) soil conditions at Greer...only in winter! There's just NO WAY for Eugene to have 3" of hot wet rain in late July, on a single day, as we can have! (or, now that I think about it, at Sonoma Horticultural Nursery, which is called something else these days, the same is true. Although Polo did put some rhodies on the lowest plains of his property in impromptu little raised beds. That might be necessary because he was so mild in winter, root rot organisms could still grow well during the wet season.) Now that a nursery has supposedly grafted Sequoia onto Metasequoia, maybe people in the southeast can plant them in poorly drained soils with abandon. We'll see. * - although, TBH, it wasn't much to see and not even as nice as the peak of NJ Rarefind around the time Hank died in 2009, I'm glad I got to see it in 2011 and meet the famous Mr. Greer. Greer might have had rarer, more tender cultivars in zone 8a, but Rarefind had just more plants, and better displayed, period, in their 6b garden.

Hi Grayneedle The school is St Benedict's Prep. in Newark, it was planted in there inner courtyard, over the years the school has had lots of construction. I know the monks who ran the school prizes the tree greatly, so it should be still there....call up and ask someone there should know... As for growing CR in the low desert, I don't think it would make it, too hot and dry...I seen them in zone 9 in the LA area, but LA does not get that hot and gets quite a bit of summer fog....I think I would have a better chance with them in the mts, I got a deodar cedar up there and they are not really hardy....I don't think my deodar cedar will stand the test of time, but so far its ok.... They are atlas cedars in the Flagstaff area that done well over the years.... I was thinking of just planting a dawn redwood, but wanted something evergreen....I read about a cv od dawn redwood call SHERIDAN SPIRE how do they do?? I remember a street in Maplewood, NJ that had dawn redwoods planted along the main st (Springfield Ave) I did love the look of these trees as a kid........