I've planted two Dawn Redwoods. One at my house ('Ogon') and a species type at my parents' house. This was the first year the 'Ogon' began making some strides w/ regard to height. The first growing year after I planted the species, it almost doubled in height; and the second growing season it did much of the same. They both responded well to the wet growing season we had. I had concerns about competing branches with my species type, but it worked itself out on its own. The 'Ogon' is quite flimsy still and requires staking. The species type is very sturdy, growing quickly both in height and caliper.

Waiting to prune up does seem to be good advice in my opinion. At least from my recent experience with what my Dawn Redwood tree, which this year for first time has begun gaining lots of height growth, that it is currently displaying. I planted my tree about 3 years ago. It was only 5 feet tall back then. Today it is just over 14 feet tall. I was thinking about doing a trunk cleaning prune just prior to its Spring leafing this year or later this upcoming fall; after the tree goes dormant, but now I am grateful that I have not already done that, and am wondering even if I should still not do that later during this upcoming fall season. The heat this summer has been particularly brutal, for longer periods than I have ever seen it occur in our northeastern part of Oklahoma. For several weeks we had high temps rise in the triple digits and during the hottest times it got up to 106 F. degrees. This dried out our soil enough to make parts of our burmuda grass yellow up, but I was afraid to do watering even at night due to the fear that watering in such extreme heat would only steam the trees and other vegitation. Well, now the temps have lowered and I am watering again, but still my Dawn redwood tree suffered too much. More than 90 percent of the leaves on that tree are brown now. The only green leaves are in the lower branches on the tree. I am now watering this tree as much as possible in the hopes that it will still pull through, but if I had already pruned up those lower branches, none of the remaining leaves would have been green, and very likely the tree would have already died by now. I do realize that the tree might still die, but seeing those lower green leaves continue to give me hope that my watering of the tree will help it to potentially survive long enough for the tree to naturally go dormant and possibly leaf out again next spring. The point of my sad tale is to reveal for you an actual ezperienced reason for not rushing to do the trunk cleaning pruning that the landscaper advised.

"' "There has been quite a bit of discussion of Sequoiadendron in the East on here in the past, blight problems seemed to be a factor even when trees had survived cold winters for years. Even here we may see dead leaders some years on ones that have been in place a long time. I assume this to be cold related but do not know for sure. Might have something to do with our cool summers, the leaders not hardening off fully before cold comes' "Not cold, nor cool summers; this doesn't happen in e.g. Scotland where summers are even cooler". I've had some experience growing Sequoias in northern Indiana and have had blight issues that can actually be fatal. I believe it's the long, hot and very humid summers that do this. I have had good luck spraying the foliage with a systemic fungicide. That has generally taken care of it. However, it has been the combination of extreme cold and high winds that killed my trees. I have now planted a strain of Sequoia known as "Hazel Smith" that is credited with being hardy to zone 5 so we'll see. The Hazel Smiths now have only one season under their belt. Regards, Fred M. Cain, Topeka, IN

Nice pic of an impressive tree and a good idea to use yourself for scale. Those ARE listed as 1948 trees so they are tied for the oldest in the country. Impressive. If you have not read it the Skidmore ametasequoia database is pretty well organized. Longmore apparently has a pretty impressive collection. I am jealous of you all out east! My local MOBOT has a pretty impressive collection but you all have soo many soo close. Here is a link that might be useful: skidmore metasequoia database