aew,
Lack of water!!new trees planted as large specimens need time to build root systems
DRs like LOTS of water,,,,,,,,not black wal
looks toast
here's one of mine 35ft from b. w.,,,,,,ron

My metasequoia ogon is probably 100 ft from my nearest walnut so I have no real expertise with that.

I will say my big, in the ground a decade since it was a foot tall, metasequoia lost 95% of its foliage 2 July's ago in the heat and drought. I was watering it for maybe an hour or so a week which kept my smaller ogon happy.

That summer was sooo dry. After it defoliated I switched to I guess six to eight hours of sprinkler on it every third night and the ground was still not turning into a mud puddle. By September I think the tree had more foliage and set an almost normal number of buds for the next year.

So, I say water the shucks out of your tree because what else can you do. These are difficult to flood.

Plantkiller, are those cats playing by your metasequoia?!?!? Nice tree and good of them to volunteer to be scale for your pic lol

Here is a link that might be useful: It got worse than this picture shows!

I find, that in some respects DR is the more temperamental species but in other respects BC is more finicky.

DR's need near constant moisture, they resent more extreme continental climates (thus doing better near the coasts). They resent prematurely early Spring heat or late Spring frosts. They also are extremely sensitive to salts.

BC's are more heat and drought tolerate but are also more sensitive about transplanting and getting established. Once established, I have more hope of long term success with the BC. Makes sense, as this is the species that was eventually 'naturally selected' for much of North America (in place of an earlier rival...Dawn Reds..,which were once native to the continent.

(Dawn Red in Autumn in photo.)

Thanks for all the great info!
My arborist took a sample to our local extension. Obviously, sample was all dried out which pointed to something "downstream". His opinion was that the actually killer was an opportunistic canker, specifically Bot. We will see when we take it down. He wrote as a side note that he has seen voles take down a mature DR, and can easily add the the stresses. Yikes!