Skywatch - Golden Dawn Redwood

Golden Dawn Redwood
Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Goldrush'
(met-uh-see-KWOY-uh) (glip-toh-stroh-BOY-deez)
Synonym: M. gly. ‘Ogon’
Skywatch Friday

A while back I posted that I had bought this tree and didn’t know if the marketing hype had got me or it was good decision. It has worked out nicely as the tree has already grown a couple of feet and is starting to shed it’s ‘nursery' shape with a nice branching structure. Its color is stunning and even in the fall the needles turn a nice rusty brown before falling off. It is a Deciduous Conifer. There aren’t too many of those around and I can only think of Larches (Larix), Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia), Bald Cypress (Taxodium) and Golden Larch (Pseudolarix). I am sure that is not a complete list.

If you click the Dawn Redwood label you can see the original picture I took of the foliage. It seems to be a very photogenic tree. I took this and the next picture with Skywatch Friday in mind. Yellow and blue is a nice combination in the garden.

I am not sure if anyone really knows how tall this tree gets. I did read 2/3’s of the size of a regular Dawn Redwood, which is still really big. Luckily I envisioned it getting real big and gave it enough space. It is growing on very wet soil and seemingly loves it.


Golden-leaved Boxelder
Acer negundo 'Kelly's Gold'
(AY-ser) (neg-UN-doh)
Synonym: Ash-leaved Maple, Cutleaf Maple, Stinking Ash

This is another golden tree growing at work. It has turned out okay and does add a chartreuse element to the partly shady area it is located in. I have seen it growing out in the open and it really does turn gold. It is nice since the inside leaves are a bright green so the contrast between the two is beautiful. Box Elder isn’t my favorite tree but some of the specialty ones are nice. There are two different variegated ones at work and both are handsome and almost dainty trees. One is 'Aureomarginatum' and the other is 'Variegatum'.

‘Kelly’s Gold’ gets up to 35 to 40 feet tall but mine is going to be shorter then that. Boxelder is native to a wide geographical area (it is the most widely distributed of the North American maples) and is considered an invasive species in some areas. It can grow on almost any soil type. It is extremely cold hardy.

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ABC Wednesday - S is for Sculpture

Detail of “Grande Disco” , by Arnaldo Pomodo.

ABC Wednesday S is for Sculpture

If you are here for Wordless Wednesday scroll down to the next post. Please consider joining ABC Wednesdays.
“Kiosque L’Evide” by Jean Dubuffet. 1970-1984. Painted Polyester Resin.

“Grande Disco”, Arnaldo Pomodo.

On Sunday I went to the World Headquarters of PepsiCo to visit the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Garden. The garden is located in Purchase, New York, 31 miles north of New York City. Pepsi’s headquarters is surrounded by 168 acres of rolling gardens and grass. The same person that designed the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Edward Durrell Stone, designed the buildings in 1970. Three landscape architects designed the grounds, Russell Page, E.D. Stone Jr. (the son of the architect), and Francois Goffinet. The gardens were laid out to showcase the sculpture collection. I had a wonderful visit and I had forgotten how beautiful the garden was since my last visit several years ago. Like I said about the chewing gum business (Wrigley family) when I visited Catalina Island there must be good money in soda!



Now originally I had about ten pictures of the different sculptures to show but I accidentally deleted the 120 photos I took before saving them. This led me on an odyssey to try and recover the files. I eventually had to download ZAR (it’s a free image recovery program) to my wife’s Dell and while the program did recover many of the 400 photos that were erased when I wrote a CD to transfer over to my Mac something was lost and I only got a few of the photos (about 60) in usable condition. Oh well, I really tried and after several crashes and a lot of spinning I decided to go with these pictures. There is no free image recovery program for Mac that I could find. So I guess in this one case Windows is better. Needless to say I would have just junked the pictures if they weren’t for my ABC post. I am sorry I can’t show a lot of the beautiful pieces of art and plants they have at the garden. I may go back next weekend with a better plan.

This is some of what I recovered ☹


Back to the art:

My apologies to the artist whose pieces are posted here and not identified. The pictures I took of the tags didn’t get recovered. Not that you need a plug from me. These pictures were all taken with the Nikon 50mm/1.8. I used the aperture priority mode and let the camera set the shutter speed. I also used some exposure compensation and a circular polarizer on some shots. It is a wonderful lens and it was purposely the only lens I brought on my trip to the garden. The best way to get to know a lens is to use it.

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Captions

Stately trees. Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) showing fall color.

I saw that I went over a 100,000 page views last night. Who would have ever thought that. Thanks to everyone, that just goes to show how many people have an interest in gardening, flowers and photography. I have loved all the comments and things I have learned from everyone out there. Keep it coming!

Golden Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Goldrush')

Golden Dawn Redwood
Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Goldrush'
(met-uh-see-KWOY-uh) (glip-toh-stroh-BOY-deez)
Taxodiaceae

Trashy Tree or Trendy Treasure?

I ask this question because some people might not like the vivid color of the foliage but I do like growing a few trendy things once in a while.

Well I went to the local wholesale nursery to buy some Rhododendrons yesterday and also ended up buying a Golden Dawn Redwood. It is about 7 feet tall. I need a tree for a moist area and thought I would try it. I have two other Dawn Redwoods in the garden, the regular species and a ‘Sheridan’s Spire’. The species tree was planted about 22 years ago and it has grown to enormous size. It is probably 75 feet tall and has a spread of about 25-30 feet on the bottom. It really has turned into a tree! The ‘Sheridan’s Spire’ has been in the ground for about 10 years and has grown to about 30 feet tall, it is much more narrow than the species. ‘Gold Rush’ is said to get not quite as tall and only grows at about two-thirds the speed of the species.

The Dawn Redwood is from China and was first described in fossil records during the early 1940’s. Some live trees were then discovered in China the same year. It is a deciduous conifer and the opposite buds on persistent stems separate it from Common Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum). The needles are also shorter and come out much earlier in the spring on the Dawn Redwood. I hope that ‘Gold Rush’ develops the nice looking cinnamon colored bark and has the same open airy feeling that my other Dawn Redwoods have. The fall color is kind of a rusty pink, which although it doesn’t sound it is attractive. My ‘Gold Rush’, which is also known as, ‘Ogon’ is about 7 feet tall and was 75 bucks. The salseman was telling me it was conifer of the year a couple of years ago and sure enough he was right, except is was last year.

The American Conifer Society selected it in 2006 as one of their Collector’s Conifer of the Year.



Since this is Digital Flower Pictures and not Digital Foliage pictures I thought I would post a picture of the yellow Rhododendron. I got some other nice rhododendrons while I was at the nursery. I picked up a yellow David Leach hybrid called ‘Capistrano'. It should look nice with the other yellow hybrid I have called ‘Hong Kong’.

I have two appointments to look at work today. One is an old customer that I am really looking forward to seeing. They live in Manhattan and come out to their house in Connecticut on weekends. The other is a potential new client.