What was I thinking when I bought a California coast redwood tree online? I doubt that anybody in this erudite audience is unaware that the Hudson Valley isn’t exactly redwood country. I know what I was thinking. On a trip to California to see the redwoods in 2022, I bought a redwood saplings at some redwood national forest gift shop. It was a cute little fellow that came in a transparent tube. It survived the trip back east in my carry-on and continued to flourish after I potted it. That is until our dog, apparently attracted by the aroma of the fertilizer that I liberally scattered around its base, uprooted the hapless sprig and murdered it.
Undeterred after putting the dog down — no, I did not put the dog down even though I may briefly have been tempted to — I contacted the nursery that grew the seedling and bought a new, bigger better one after having a learned conversation with one of their representatives. She assured me they were hardy and would survive an East Coast winter. She even sent me a photo of one growing in the snows of Moscow.
Redwood 2.0 has now survived three summers and two winters and I’m itching to plant it outdoors. During the winter it resides in our basement, which seems to suit it just fine. There’s a single high window that provides light if not direct sunlight. That, I like to think, lends it the will to live. After the last frost in May I relocate it to our sundeck, where I can almost feel it emit a sigh of relief and spread it outstretched arms to the gods of photosynthesis.
But leaving a tree in a pot, particularly the planet’s tallest, most awesome tree (no disrespect intended to our local oaks and maples; I love you guys) seems cruel and unusual punishment. It’s like confining a growing child indoors. Most of us, with the exception of a few people I went to college with, need direct sunlight.
Three years on I felt strongly that this was the year to make the move, that my little friend could finally stand on its own two feet; or rather its fledgling neural root network. But despite what the experts say, planting a tree in autumn doesn’t feel right. Spring is the season for planting, for birth and renewal. I’ll resist the temptation to anthropomorphize my conifer. Nonetheless, how happy is it going to be amid fall’s wind and rain and maybe even snow. I fear that our ravenous deer will make quick work of it, no matter how much fencing I construct around it.
Plus, it’s indigenous to California. Californians I know seem to adapt reasonably well to the East Coast. But do they ever really stop longing for those pristine, cloudless days and Pacific breezes?
The climate wasn’t my only issue. I pride myself on being pretty good in thinking ahead — during the pandemic I bought a chest freezer and a patio heater before most people though to — but redwoods can live to be 2,000 years old. Frankly, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if our own species survives the next hundred years; not to mention the next three years and two months. But putting all that aside, where would you plant a tree that will eventually grow to be over three hundred feet tall?
Obviously, you don’t want it next to the house, in case it falls over. You also don’t want it hogging your entire lawn. I already have issues mowing around my chestnut trees and they’re only three years old. Then again, all my pondering and planning may be for naught. A.I. tells me that I’m already screwed. If you’ll allow me to quote from it: “No,” it began its answer inauspiciously. “Coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are unlikely to survive in USDA Hardiness Zone 6a. They thrive in mild, wet climates with high humidity and fog.”
A.I. went on to suggest — maybe I’m just insecure but I found its tone belittling — that I consider a giant sequoia or a dawn redwood instead. “The giant sequoia,” the snarky genius instructed, “is much hardier than the Coast redwood and can be grown in Zone 6.”
But I already have so much invested in this tree. I resist the temptation to overwater it in winter, allowing its soil to grow almost parched. I’m so proud of it. As I write this, with an autumn chill in the air and nighttime temperatures plunging into the forties, it’s still sprouting new buds. I suppose I can keep moving it into ever larger pots. But eventually it will need a container the size of a swimming pool. And what happens after I’m gone. I probably have no more than thirty years left, assuming vaccines haven’t been completely outlawed. I understand coast redwoods grow quickly but in redwood time it will still be a toddler. And it would be unfair to shackle my descendants with the burden of having to fertilize and water it, at least for the near future. They already resent me because of all the stuff in the basement that I refuse to throw out and that they’ll be left to dispose of.
My plan at the moment is to give it one more winter in the basement. Come spring I’ll plant it over the grave of Wallie, our dog who killed my last coast redwood. Certainly not out of spite but because the grave site needs landscaping. Perhaps the old hound will even help fertilize it. There’s sparse direct sunlight at the location but its odds of survival are already remote. My dream is that the specimen endures until, facilitated by global warming, upstate New York’s climate comes to resemble that of the Pacific Northwest. And I’ll be ahead of the curve once again, with awestruck arborists of the future celebrating me as the Paul Bunyan of the Anthropocene.