I've been considering planting Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) or Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), eventually decided to grow a few of each but now wonder (for my purposes and situation) if that's necessary.

From what I understand Dawn redwood will grow faster and get larger than Bald Cypress (which is desirable).

I like them both but must admit I get them confused so if I like one more than the other, right now, I'm not sure which it is.

* Can Dawn Redwood handle as much moisture as Bald Cypress?
(I do like the Cypress knees but they're not a dealbreaker)

* Is one more juglone tolerant than the other?

* Does Bald Cypress offer and other pros/benefits/qualities over Dawn Redwood?

Thanks

My $.02

Dawn Redwood:
-Grows faster
-Opposite bud arrangement is pleasing
-If left to branch near the ground it gets a more buttressed trunk (If you limb it up the trunk is very "Bald Cypress" like)
-One of the neatest stories in the tree world

Bald Cypress:
-More cold hardy once established(which is important in your zone. I bet Dawn Redwood lives but suffers some dieback in spring and fall
-Tolerant, even thrives in a RIDICULOUS amount of water
-Gets knees if planted in a wet enough area. I have seen this next to lakes not just in water

How much room do you have again? Personally I would love to grow a couple of each like over at the Missouri Botanical Garden just to compare the difference.

As mentioned bald cypress are more cold hardy.

neither are going to grow to specs under black walnut ....

both are full complete sun .... for best results ....

ken

juglone effects can go well past the dripline of a walnut tree.

Anyhoo, hers never has any die back and is doing quite well.

It's a beautiful tree and I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

Look around at local parks that have them planted and see what you like. Both can be cool.

Dawn Redwoods grow really fast initially, and form a nice conifer shape early. When older, Dawn Redwood can have a really unique weird lower trunk with "armpits" under branches. The lower trunk stays more normal if you limb the tree up. Dawn Redwood can have very nice peach/pink to reddish color in Autumn, but not on all trees every year.

Bald Cypress tend to get rusty brown in Autumn, more impressive on large trees. They can get a cool buttressed trunk. If they grow well, can be a beautiful tree. Bald Cypress sometimes grows weakly on alkaline soil, I see some very nice trees in the city, but some struggle to look good but do well if established.

If you have room... both. I would pick a Dawn Redwood first IMO.

The location I have the Bald Cypress at is also where a mature Bradford Pear died due to too much water. As mentioned above if your concern is water then Bald Cypress is the way to go. I just love the way they look to with the feather needles. Really just seems to make it look cooler outside during the summer when the humidity is over 100degrees. Well at least in my head it feels cool. Haha!

Up by Cleveland at Seacrest Arboretum they have some tall metasequoia. In the middle of the state near...Dayton is Dawes. They have quite a metasequoia collection as well. For some reason Dawes seems to have shorter trees on the whole but none the less some of the neatest trunks I have seen. (I did not just miss the tall ones at Dawes did I?)

Further south by Cincy what was that small arb with three of the taller metasequoias I have seen. Also the zoo has more than a dozen Ogen Metasequoias. Pretty neat.

Not sure what that means but it is what I saw.

The dawn redwood were planted as two foot saplings about 7 years ago and the tallest is now at least 30 feet tall. No dieback ever, good reddish-brown fall color. The bald cypress are younger trees; one had a leader die back over winter but I trained a new one and you can't tell there was ever a problem (both trees are now about 8-9 feet tall).

Both are fine trees and I can't pick a clear cut favorite.

Secrest Arboretum is near Wooster OH, closer to Canton than Cleveland.

Dawes Arboretum in near Newark OH, east of Columbus.

Near Dayton is the Cox Arboretum - don't remember if there's a Metasequoia there, but wouldn't be surprised.

Not sure which small arboretum near Cincy is being referred to (maybe the Rowe, with a stellar old conifer collection?), but I agree that the Cincinnati Zoo has excellent plants. Probably the best individual Dawn Redwood is the state champion (I think) at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. It is a whopper of a beauty, with a fine prospect next to a lake. There are also fine plantings of quite old Taxodium there as well.

You should visit river walk in San Antonio, Texas. Huge native bald cypress trees (200-300 years old) growing in alkaline soil.

+oM

Must...come...visit...

I planted several of both (bare root babies) 3 years ago.

Since I'm in the middle south, I can't comment on cold tolerance. The coldest it has been here since I moved here was 9 F. :-) That's rare. Historical record -26 from the 1960s and I can assure you there are bald cypress (and probably DR somewhere) that lived through that here.

Anyway.

- One of my BCs is outgrowing all but one DR.
- Baby DRs don't like to be in the wind, the ones out front are half as tall as the ones in the back that are somewhat protected from winds (not just thunderstorm wind bursts but slow steady winds).
- I have DRs and BCs in places where the soil is almost always wet. The BCs love it for sure.

- We have Japanese Beetles (invasive bug) and they will hit both but do more eating on the DRs it seems.

- In terms of wind firmness at maturity, BCs probably take the cake, although I asume DRs do fine, if that is a concern.

In my book, no tree is more awesome than a mature bald cypress -- on dry land or in a swamp, in a yard or by the river -- and both have a great primevil / primordial vibe.

Marshall

planted in 1994

Planted in 1987

and planted in 1971

Well, I am late to this topic. One of my very favorite trees is the baldcypress--it simply has no weaknesses--it has a beautiful shape, is incredibly strong in storms, tolerates all kinds of conditions, has nice fall color, will grow anywhere, etc. etc.

I love the dawn redwood also, but not nearly so much. And where I live, in a dry, drought prone Z6 (near Winchester, VA), my dawn redwoods have struggled, and grow very, very slowly. The won't grow quite as well on wet sites as baldcypress, but they don't like the generally dry summers here either. And I am not a big fan of the "ropy" way the trunk grows around the collars of the lower branches. The baldcypress had a much nicer trunk form.

As for the knees--I have never seen any around here where they are growing in well-drained deep soils.

If anyone is around the D.C. area, here is where you can go to see good examples of these trees: at the National Arboretum there is a really nice little grove of tall dawn redwoods near the Gotelli collection of conifers. These trees are about 80 to 90 feet tall in narrow spire-like form, and still growing well.

As for the bald cypress, there are fine specimens growing in the park area just south of the Ellipse, just north of constitution avenue. This is generally across from the Washington Monument. The largest of these trees might be about 4 feet in diameter, but I am guessing. They are simply absolutely gorgeous trees.

Near where I am living now in VA, the little municipal park in Berryville, has a total knockout gorgeous baldcypress. You can sit under this tree and believe for all you are worth that this is the most beautiful tree in the whole wide world.

--Spruce

John

Sorry I don't have any pictures of baldcypress trees--I should have. Next time I go to Berryville (and D.C.) I will take my camera. Of course there are much larger ones--when I was in Florida, many, many years ago (more than 50), I saw one absolutely humongous baldcypress tree. I can't now remember where, but it was a famous tree. More recently when I was visiting the Jamestown area in VA, I saw a massive one on one of the nearby historic estates.

Anyway, the dawn redwood were not planted in this country until somewhere near 1946--they were recently discovered by "westerners," and not available here before that. So we don't really have any very old ones and haven't seen them develop over a long period of time. One thing I like about baldcypress is that they are very long-lived--a true "legacy" tree. They grow in a more or less compact conical/pyramidal form when young, but then spread with age. We could speculate that dawn redwoods will be long-lived here also, but we can't be sure. I have seen pictures of older ones in China, and it seems that they also spread more with age.

As for cultivars, I don't know much, and have not really seen any, except for little ones. But, like you, I am interested in the BC "Shawnee Brave," and planted one last year in a very special place where a more spreading tree wouldn't work. I have hopes that in a few years it will be gorgeous.

--Spruce

Some do well in very dry, alkaline conditions and most do very well in a swamp. Know your soil pH and rainfall levels. It is said that overall, the Dawn Redwood does well in a wider range of conditions if you don't know your source of bc.

(The chinese have hybridized the mexican and american bc and have come up with some superior hybrids. At Stephen F. Austin University they are testing a wide array of bc strains, including hybrids, google for more information.)

In 2004 I also planted three Pond cypresses in normally-drained soil above the flood-plain & these are almost 25' tall & maintain very narrow outlines. But they aren't quite as hardy as the BCs -- a bit of cold-damage on the twig ends every winter from too-late growth -- but not a real problem.
One of the most impressive BCs I've seen was a giant, planted, lawn tree in a town near the Big Sandy river in SE Kentucky. It looked like a giant oak with a widespread crown of huge, horizontal branches -- not what one would expect. Prb'ly 6 ft dia ABH w/a massive root buttress on the ground.

Thanks for sharing!

+oM

+oM

The first of these two photos is definite BC, and the second probably is too.

"snasxs, do you know where this is^^^? "

Snasxs almost never gives locations ;-)

Resin

I repeat my request, please post some detailed pictures of BC (Bald Cypress).

Bald cypress is a common park tree around here and perhaps uncommon but not rare by any means in suburban settings. Google should have millions of pictures. Don't expect the knees though if you do not have very wet soil or a lake in its dripline.

I have spent considerably more time watching two of my metasequoias grow however. The leaders seem to remain soft for some time and has broken after about 10 inches of growth on my big tree several times.

Dawn Redwood- Taller, (200+ feet, 8+ feet diameter)faster growth

Bald Cypress- Larger,(150+ feet, 20+ feet diameter)slower growth,can handle more water

However, there is a special pine that I know of: Pinus syluestriformis that is known to have special ability to withstand persistent strong wind. Image below:

Resin

I saw the same thing here in FW-Dallas area...if left to open wind exposure, BCs look like that.

BTW, I'm thinking my two up at my land (Used to be three) are perhaps the most northerly-planted in the US that I've heard of. At that cold, Z 4 location, they're not all that really. At least so far, it's a game of surviving, not thriving.

+oM

Yes.

Also note the clustered, sessile (unstalked) cones, around 3-4 cm diameter; DR cones are pendulous on long stalks and smaller, around 2-3 cm.

Resin

You've posted that pic before & it's always impressive -- unusually densely-foliaged. Do you know if that's a typical BC, a subspecies, variant, or hybrid?

The specimen I collected most of my seeds from was similar -- a bit taller w/a much larger trunk (4' dia abh). It was almost as dense & (barely) kept a pointed, single-leadered top. The form was like a giant, fat Christmas tree.

Pond cypress is impressive in foliage -- looks more like a juniper, true cypress or giant sequoia than a BC.

Initially, I thought it may be Taxodium mucronatum. I asked around. A few thought it looked like T. mucronatum. A director of university arboretum liked its form and asked for cones. He noted that the size of seeds fall in between mucronatum and distichum. The key difference between these two species is that mucronatum stays green about a month longer (starts growth early and can retain green foliage significantly longer into late fall/early winter. Even most of winter if it is mild enough. However, this one is drops its foliage at the same time as other bald cypress trees so who knows? I wish I could find out where it came from. I haven't seen any bald cypress like that.

What Montezuma cypress looks like at Stephen F Austin State University. Apparently, the biggest knockoff on MC is weak leader dominant but this one is surrounded by BCs so maybe that helps for some things. So far, my seedlings - better overall form, more dominant central leader, more evergreen.

Yes, the ropy trunks can be really nice. Spectacular picture. I actually saw that tree a number of years ago--it has grown since!

--spruce