Stiffy,

This is from the Adobe instruction booklet found on the provided web page:

"In the United States, the WOLLEMIÂ pine tree is hardy to USDA Zone 7. In colder zones it may be grown outside in summer months, then brought inside during winter and grown as a house plant."

Looks like their mistake....so go ahead and smoke some more.

Barbara

False representation on the part of NG, to try to trap unwary customers and so make more money . . . maybe someone should take them to court?

Resin

That and the "pine" factor. They could have just called it a Wollemi "Tree". Why pine???

As well as that illegal trademarking of a long-established place name. Best to call it just Wollemia, as that hasn't been trademarked.

Resin

Can also be used as a landscape tree in USDA hardiness zones 2 through 7, which includes New England, the Midatlantic states, and much of the Midwest

is clearly just plain wrong, presented as though someone thought (eastern) USDA 8 and up would be too hot for it - when in fact even USDA 8 is liable to be too cold, Zone 9 probably about where climate suitability starts.

Putting a TM after a name is merely claiming a trademark, getting additional backing from the USPTO is another thing.

In Z5, and with a fairly extensive tree collection, my Wollemi is still my favourite tree and I am happy to bring it indoors for the winter.
It comes in without any adaption issues unlike any other conifer I've tried.

"It comes in without any adaption issues unlike any other conifer I've tried."
That's because it's a subtropical conifer. I've had no trouble keeping Araucaria angustifolias and A. bidwillis inside.

Wollemia, Schmo-llemia. I'm so sick of the buzz over this plant. The foliage doesn't even strike me as that interesting looking. Podocarpus chinensis is 5X as exciting, and hardier! I'm sure the mother plant is pretty, but almost any conifer that has survived that long is, for some reason or another. Hence the appeal of that dendro press book which seems never to get published.

Even back when they were saying it was 7-10 hardy that was a big stretch. Based on where it comes from and other plants from the same area, zn 9 is safe for long term, because of course zn 9 can get down to mid teens in a bad winter. Ask anybody in northern California after 1990. It's one thing with a perennial or shrub but a conifer is supposed to be a permanent landscape feature. zn 8 - will in zn 8 it would last some years, perhaps many, but a really bad zn 8 winter would take it out except in really favorable zn 8 spots. It would only take an average zn 7 winter to kill one so they shouldn't call them zn 7 hardy. The plants in 7b Washington DC looked pretty rough after a fairly mild winter there. Who wants a conifer that has a coating of brown needles every spring?

By contrast I am trying Sequoia 'Swarthmore Hardy' in my garden - which is south of Swarthmore and should be at least as mild. I saw the William and Mary trees after bitterly cold 0F in 1994 - every body of water in Williamsburg frozen solid and safe to walk on - apparently undamaged. Swarthmore is quite a bit colder than Williamsburg, VA - at least compared to most of the native range of S. s.. They come from an area with a MUCH greater potential of cold air over the past 500K years than Wollemia.

"Wollemia, Schmo-llemia. I'm so sick of the buzz over this plant. The foliage doesn't even strike me as that interesting looking."

I don't know what to tell you man. I think a plant that's been around for two hundred million years, survived numerous mass extinctions and geologic periods and changes in the geography and climate of it's native continent, and now clings to life by the skin of it's teeth, hiding in a remote mountain canyon, sounds pretty f-ing fascinating to me. Tons more exciting than any cultivar. The cultivar thing never really caught on with me. I like conifers and gymnosperms moer than flowering plants because to me, they have a far more interesting link with geology and the past and the history of this planet.

I think the 2 - 7 zone listing was a mistaken reference to the Australian zone system, where interior Tasmania is zone 2 and the tropical north is zone 7.

Podocarpus chinensis - nice, but it doesn't have the aesthetic look of an armored dinosaur. I have to say that I was put off by all the hype and marketing surrounding the Wollemia too, until I finally saw one in person, then I was obsessed.
I would love to be able to have one as a landscape specimen, but I will have to settle for Sciadopitys in the yard instead.

"but I will have to settle for Sciadopitys in the yard instead"

That's actually a far better 'dinosaur' in terms of uniquely distinctive living fossil status - it is in a family all its own, unlike Wollemia, which is one of three genera in a family. After Ginkgo, Sciadopitys is the most uniquely distinctive woody plant on the planet.

Resin

Resin said it, so it sticks!

I have seen a small one in person. (that was not winter damaged) Still no more moved by it than I was by photographs of it. Does it look "unique"? Yes, but so does Cathaya (which resembles a cross between a larch and a Sciadopitys), so does Cephalotaxus fortunei...etc.

Cathaya looks like a giant haircap moss to me. Sciadopitys is amusing because it is possible to peel apart its fused needles right down the middle.

Wouldn't be the case here - confusion with the Australian zones seems likely to be the problem - but a common thing is for minimum temperature of a plant to be used as a basis for assigning a USDA Hardiness Zone to that plant instead of the average annual minimum temperature range of the zone. Plant is hardy to 10 degrees F., so it is said to be hardy to USDA 7 (because the average annual range for Zone 7 is 0 to 10 degrees F.). As intimated above, problem with that is occasional winters fall below the average range in each zone. A plant hardy to only 10 degrees F. isn't even long-term hardy in USDA 8, where it can sometimes get down near 0 degrees F. As with other zones, infrequent killer winters below 10 degrees F. are not enough to pull an area out of average annual minimum temperature range for USDA 8 - but they are enough to wipe out plants not hardy below 10 degrees F.