Hey everyone! New to the board and was looking for some information, maybe you can help? I want to propagate redwood trees and I've read that you can take root cuttings and plant them in pots or the ground and they'll grow. Does this work for all parts of the root system or just the burl/base area? Does it really work? My thinking is there is a redwood tree at UC Santa Cruz that has had 'Tree Sitters' in it for the last year, they came down yesterday. This means the tree will soon be removed for the construction of a new facility. That's fine and well, but I'm thinking why not make a positive out of a negative (killing a tree) and propagating as many trees as I can from the root system if it's possible.??? Any help or suggestions would be very welcome, thank you all and I hope my stay here is a pleasant one. Mr. Blum ps, I know the cones should produce too.
No personal experience from me but I did find a link with some information via a Google search: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/native_plants_journal/v009/9.1.luna.html
This may be a learning curve for me too. I think he is the one who emailed me, and I had recommended the UBC forum, not knowing of the post already. I'm curious also, about whether the small adventitious roots will grow too. In the attached image, are small adventitious roots at the base of El Viejo del Norte, the 6th largest coast redwood. There are dead dry ones from past years, and fresh new ones. I'm not sure if any of these become the basal sprouts seen on coast redwoods. Best I can remember, I've never seen a redwood tree sprout from the roots of a redwood tree in an urban landscape. Not like seen with plum or flowering cherry. But if redwoods can sprout buds from bare wood when branches or twigs are cut and stubbed, it seems believable that roots could sprout if severed from the main body of the tree. I'd sure try it - what's to loose. But I'd try roots of several diameter, ranging from like 1 millimeter size on up to maybe 50 millimeter size. And different lengths. In the redwoods, I don't see a whole lot of seedling size trees. But where I saw the most new small trees lately, was at the same tree, El Viejo del Norte. Small sprouts are emerging from the broken storm debris that fell on, or impaled into the ground. I'm calling the first sprout "GENESIS" redwood. From my signature link - then probably Album 1, and on video in the videos, I"ve got a couple of photos and a short video clip. The smallest branch was a couple of inches in diameter, and it impaled into the ground winter a full year ago. I am not yanking them out at all, as it may be a rare occurance. Rare in the sense of sprouting and surviving. I saw similar sprouts from fallen debris, about 1 hour south at Altas Grove in Prairie Creek redwoods, but the wood or area probably dried out more, because the sprouts wilted. So continuous contact with moisture seems to be the reason for success in the Grove of Titans where El Viejo del Norte is.
