Dawn Redwood

Description

Ancient • Deciduous Conifer

This is a specimen I bought for my sister, currently living just outside Larne in Northern Ireland. For rather longer than anticipated, it remained resolutely unplanted despite my gentle encouragement that a potentially enormous prehistoric tree might eventually appreciate having some actual ground to grow in.

Thankfully, I harboured absolutely no resentment about this whatsoever.

Dawn redwood is a remarkable tree. Known originally only from fossils, it was thought to have been extinct for millions of years until living trees were discovered in China in the 1940s. Seeds were subsequently distributed around the world, making it one of the great botanical rediscoveries of the twentieth century.

Unlike most conifers, dawn redwood is deciduous. Its soft, feathery green foliage turns warm copper and russet in autumn before falling, leaving the tree bare through winter. Given enough space, it can eventually become a magnificent tree more than 30 metres tall.

Update, November 2025: The tree has been planted out!

All resentment, which definitely never existed, is now officially resolved.