Hello Sarah,

both Taxodium and Metasequoia actually like to get their feet wet. I believe either would do quite nicely in your situation. In addition to the species, but have lots of interesting cultivars that are easily available.

I would avoid Pseudolarix.

good luck
~Dave

Always choose Metasequoia, go big or go home! ;-) Whatever you pick, remember that its potential size means a lot of fallen needles to deal with, which are not as easy to pick up as deciduous broad-leaves, make sure you can handle that or plant it where you'll never have to pick them up, away from green lawns. I like the larch, but only because of the famous Monty Python sketch I can never get out of my head when that tree is named, it's a bad documentary slide show on identifying trees that keeps coming back to one showing a larch (Larix decidua) "The larch, the larch..." the voiceover keeps repeating, it'll make you pee your pants!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Larch

Since ALL the above mentioned "prefer acid soil" (seems everything desirable does as far as trees go), will my slightly alkaline soil pose any issue?

Grow what you want! You can't change the ground unless you move. Not sure which trees don't prefer acid soil. Dawes Arboretum near Newark has plenty of conifers.

Dawn Redwood does fine and grows fast, there are plenty of very tall and or nice trees if you look around. Some trees are limbed up quite a bit..

Bald Cypress does fine also, but seems more inconsistant for whatever reason. Some trees may have chlorosis? You can find many beautiful trees, but you don't see to many nice looking old trees in the city area. Upper Arlington has planted a lot of Bald Cypress. Dawes Arboretum has literally hundreds.

I don't see many Larch in the city area, except for those freak grafted weeping monstrosity things... the bigger trees I see are not terribly impressive. Think they need more open space, or maybe they don't like the hot summers that much. You can always try.

Pseudolarix does okay at Dawes Arboretum, they have 3 in a group. Some others I've seen including one at Goodale Park are pathetic. I see a nice tree in some old guy's very small front yard, and he is trimming it like a christmas tree to keep it bushy and 7' high, which is bizarre.

I would recommend to try to get nice small trees that have not been hacked/trimmed and don't have messed up roots... these trees should grow fast if they get a good start.

Sarah, get over to Dawe's if you have not been. The place is amaging. They seem to have enough taxodium and metasequoia to make me think yours will be fine. For some reason it seems in skuth west and north east ohio they had taller metasequoia though.

Dawe's is great. But beware. It will make you want to plant a Beech as well.

Start off small and bare-root if at all possible or those that have not been grown very long in a container or upland soil nursery beds. The order of the three as to survival rate, are:
Taxodium
Larix (all species)
then Metasequoia.
Correction: Metasequoia does grow well in wet soil types....as opposed to my earlier statement that it does not.

Dax

This post was edited by gardener365 on Tue, Dec 25, 12 at 12:32

Sarah, get over to Dawe's if you have not been.

==>>> seems like we have been telling sarah this since she burst onto the scene 6 or 8 weeks ago ...

hey.. and what about that local place you were going to visit .. did you ever report back ...

i just dont know how to get this out of your head ... crimminey ... listen to me.. you said ... YOU SEE THEM AROUND THE 'HOOD'.... crimminey.. that means.. they survive.. around the hood ...

of all the variables that need be addressed in being successful in growing trees/conifers.. this is just about the last one i would EVER consider ...

trust me.. i have been to columbus.. there are trees everywhere.. all kinds.. the issue is basically irrelevant ...

now.. if we were talking blueberries.. or some truly specific plant .. well yeah.. maybe it is an issue ...but trees are awful forgiving ... over a broad spectrum ...

the problem you should focus on .. based on my recollection of visiting westerville .. is figuring out how to get a shovel in some of the worst clay i have ever seen in my life ...

anyway.. MC and HNYear ... and get ye to dawes.. conifers are one of the few garden plants that are exciting.. even in winter .. even the nudey ones ...

have a great day .. and in winter .. call ahead .. you might find some very bored gardeners who would enjoy talking to a live person .. rather than those plants .. lol ... in the dead of winter ...

ken

I can't speak for Metasequoia's tolerance for wet soil in the north, but here in TN I have several growing in permanently saturated soil along with Taxodium. The Taxodiums are producing many knees. When I planted both over 20 years ago the holes I dug filled with water immediately. I have acid soil here, and all three types do well. In Nashville, which has a pH of around 7 or a tad more, one occasionally sees chlorotic Taxodium, but most are fine. Metasequoia does fine, as did the two larches I knew of before they were removed.

Its quite possible the Bald Cypress aren't chlorotic because of the ph alone. 6.6 to 7.5 is considered the neutral zone. 7.6 is considered slightly alkaline. I've yet to see a chlorotic Bald Cypress in my area in which ph ranges from 7 to 7.8ish. Mine are grown in 7.5.

Sarah, your 7.2 is neutral not slightly alkaline and you can basically grow anything based on your ph alone. I pretty much grow everything in my 7.5. Pin Oak is one of the very few zone hardy exceptions.

Bald Cypress does well in clay by the way as long as you have decent drainage.

This post was edited by whaas on Wed, Dec 26, 12 at 9:09

Is size a factor at all?

Mark