If you want to grow a majestic Coastal Redwood in your landscape, join gardening expert Logan Hailey as she describes how to plant and care for the world's tallest tree!
Do you want to grow the tallest tree in the world? If you live between Central California and Southwestern Oregon, you can grow the iconic Coast Redwood tree in its native zone. Also known as California Redwood, these tremendously tall trees grow wild exclusively along the southern parts of the Pacific Northwest Coast. They rarely thrive more than 50 miles inland. However, the stately conifers can be cultivated in many locations around the world with some extra maintenance and modifications.
For example, California’s Coast Redwoods have successfully grown on plantations in New Zealand since the early 1900s. Even Hawaii has redwood forests on both Maui and Kauai, but the trees only grow successfully above 6,000 feet in this tropical zone. In colder and drier regions, the redwood cousin, Giant Sequoia—native to the Sierra Nevada Mountains—is a reliable option for a home landscape. This species can also be grown on the East Coast, but they tend to be much shorter.
Let’s dig in how to plant and care for your very own Coast Redwood. This tree easily out-lives your great grandchildren and acts like a living legacy of your love for gardening!
Crowned the tallest tree in the world, Coast Redwoods are a breathtaking sight to behold. People from all over the globe trek to Northern California to experience the last of wild old-growth redwood forests. These one-of-a-kind conifers grow up to 300 feet tall and can live to be 3,000 years old or more. Only about 5% of the original redwoods remain in the world, but you can play a role in keeping this ancient species alive by planting it in your landscape.
Fortunately, this tree doesn’t only grow in its native range. Sequoia sempervirens can be cultivated as a landscape tree in many other places. With proper moisture, temperature, and soil, the seedlings grow into magnificent ornamental specimens in a variety of climates. The species is also one of the fastest-growing trees, averaging a whopping 3 to 10 feet per year!
Coast Redwood, or California Redwood, is botanically known as Sequoia sempervirens. It is the tallest tree in the world, reaching up to 300 feet tall. One of the fastest-growing conifers, Coast Redwood is native to a limited range on the foggy Pacific Northwest coast, but it can be cultivated in other areas.
These fire-resistant, tannin-rich, ultra-resilient trees have been around since the age of the dinosaurs. They have significant ecological value, and redwood forests even create their own weather patterns!
Sequoia sempervirens, or the Coast Redwood, is the tallest recorded tree on the planet, reaching heights up to 300 feet. For comparison, the tallest pine tree is about 260 feet, and the tallest tanoak is 160 feet.
A redwood relative, the Giant Sequoia or Sequoiadendron giganteum is the largest tree in the world by volume, but they don’t grow quite as tall as Coast Redwoods. Both species can live to be thousands of years old. They are endemic to California and a small portion of Southern Oregon.
It is perfectly legal to grow a redwood in your garden, but it is illegal to cut down, dig up, or propagate a wild protected tree. Instead, you must propagate redwoods from seeds or nursery stock. It is important to match the right species to your climate or make significant modifications to keep the tree alive outside of its native California range:
Coast Redwoods are very picky about their environment, requiring lots of humid or foggy air, moist but well-drained soils, and mild temperatures between 30-70°F (-1 to 21°C).
Dawn Redwoods, native to China, are more flexible and desirable for ornamental use.
Giant Sequoias are ideal for dryer, colder regions, and low-elevation mountains.
This coniferous (cone-bearing) tree can be propagated by seed, cutting, or sucker shoots. The seeds tend to have low germination rates, so vegetative propagation is the most common. You can also find varieties of Sequoia sempervirens seedlings at ornamental tree nurseries.
If you want to get the largest tree possible in a short amount of time, purchase an established redwood from a tree nursery. Most propagation methods take one to three years to produce saplings large enough to plant in the ground.
Growing from seed is a great way to enhance the genetic diversity of redwoods. However, it is not recommended for home gardeners who want a reliable sapling to grow as a shade tree. If you’re growing for ornamental purposes, it is much easier to start with cuttings or established saplings from a nursery. Seed propagation is usually reserved for redwood nerds who are invested in learning about the species.
A mature redwood tree can produce up to 100,000 seeds per year, but only about 1 in every 12 seeds is viable. This means the germination rate is very low, and you must plant a lot of seeds to ensure success. To make matters more complicated, most of the seeds are released before the cones fall to the ground. So, if you collect cones from a wild redwood forest, they likely have already lost their seeds unless a squirrel or storm dropped the seed-filled cone to the ground prematurely.
So how does one acquire viable seeds? You can purchase redwood tree seeds online or collect them from a mature forest after a major rainstorm. The best time to find redwood seeds is in November and December after a heavy rain. The wind of a storm gives you the best chance to find fallen cones that still have their seeds.
Be sure you have permission to collect cones from the area! The U.S. Forest Service allows small quantities of green cones to be collected as long as they are below Incidental Use thresholds.
The tiny seeds are about the size of a tomato seed. They must be cold stratified (refrigerated for 20-30 days) to mimic the cold exposure of a natural winter outdoors. It’s best to collect all the cones, place them in a bag or box, and shake them to release the seeds.
Move the mix into a ziplock bag with a moist perlite or coco coir blend. The bag should be sealed and occasionally misted with water to ensure it doesn’t dry out.
Growing redwoods from cuttings is faster and often more successful than growing from seed. The plants start with more growth than seedlings and take an average of two to three years to be ready to plant outdoors.
However, cuttings are a form of vegetative (clonal) propagation that does not offer the genetic diversity of sexual (seed) propagation. Still, this method is most desirable for home gardeners and tree nurseries because you can guarantee you will have the same genetics as the mother redwood.
Have you heard of redwood fairy rings? One of the most unique things about this tree is its ability to grow in family groups. The shallow, wide-spreading roots intertwine with the roots of other trees around them. When an old tree dies, the mother tree sends up sprouts from its roots to grow new saplings. These basal sprouts can be found along cut stumps, fallen logs, or expansive redwood root zones. The ability to sprout from the base is very rare in conifer trees.
These “sucker shoots” or “stump shoots” are typically found growing in circles around the central stump, hence the nickname “fairy rings.” Scientists used to think that all the shoots in a fairy ring were genetically identical clones, but recent evidence shows that multiple genetics can be intermingled in the circle. Even after the parent tree dies, the young redwoods continue to grow in a circle to stabilize and nourish each other.
The only reliable and legal way to propagate sucker shoots is from a mature suckering tree or a fairy ring on your own property or in a neighbor’s yard (with permission). It is illegal to dig up or cut any portion of a wild redwood tree because it is a protected species.
The main benefit of propagating by sucker is extremely rapid growth, growing up to 8-10 feet in the first year thanks to nourishment from the parent roots. However, this only works if the sucker has a strong network of fine roots that can be dug up.
Transplanting a Coast Redwood is similar to planting other types of trees. If you don’t live in the species’ native growing zone, it is important to amend the soil to ensure proper drainage. Generally, a tree needs at least two or three years of growth (from seed) to be ready to plant outdoors. But if you purchase an established potted tree or bare root specimen, you can plant it right away.