I'm usually extremely patient with all the questions and replies from even the newest newbies, but look - Pam gave you good advise; and you've revealed through the nature of your questions that the base of knowledge you're operating from is not broad or extensive enough to dispute it, or even mount a legitimate argument against it. Perhaps I'm misreading things, but it appears to me that you'd like to be spoon-fed your answers, and if they aren't what you wanted to hear, you'd rather stay the very course you question than change it. I stopped offering advice simply because it quickly became apparent you weren't paying much heed to it anyway. If you had armed yourself with some of the knowledge offered by following the links, you would at least be able to frame your questions in such a way that they would lead to usable answers, and you would also be cognizant of some of the reasoning set Pam and others used to formulate their advice. "...the pond soil is pretty much Turface. I checked." Ok - I checked too. So how does it compare in physical size to Turface? Is it as porous overall? What % of the product is sand? "It looks like the same exact thing." How can it when the PRIMARY ingredient is sand? "It provides aeration for the plant." Whether or not it provides aeration depends on what volume it's used in - what % of the total volume it comprises - and what the size of the other particulates are. IOW - you cannot make this blanket statement. "And besides, coast redwoods love water anyway." So do Labrador retrievers. If you're so sure they'll (redwoods) love the water so much, then any old soil will suit them fine - garden soil holds tons of water .... The FACT is, they don't love water. Like almost all trees, they require good aeration for their vitality, which is not always easy to supply in container culture, which leads us full circle to the concept that all three of the experienced growers expanded upon at one point or another. Good luck. Al

" There is also a very large, and interesting plantation of them in Maui, not the southeast, but still a really warm humid climate" Nope! Wrong again! The redwoods there are mostly planted above 5000', a climate where dewpoints are always << 60F, thus nights are going to be in the 50s at worse, and even 30s and 40s in winter. Highs probably never hit 80f, even during the worst heatwaves. Not at all a "really warm humid climate". A few are a bit lower, down to 3000', but their growth seems to become abnormal. Even there, summer are as cool or cooler than Boston's!

what is your soil .... if anything but clay ... with good drainage ... dig hole.. remove from pot .. untangle or trim circling roots ... make inverted cone in hole.. set plant on top so that it is at the proper planting depth ..... refill half way with the soil extracted ... drench in thoroughly.. packing a bit to insure it wont sink .... when the water has drained ... refill the rest of the soil .... drench again .... add a 2 foot mulch ring around the whole plant ..... do not water again.. until.. inserting your index finger.. to the second knuckle.. the soil feels dry or hot [hot meaning it will dry in a few days ..] .... most conifers prefer a good drink .. and then NOT all that much water .... water deeply but infrequently ... and use your finger ... when i plant.. it might end up weeks or months before more water is needed ... based on the vagaries of mother nature ... make sure it goes into winter.. properly watered .... you are responsible for PROPER watering.. for two years.. and then.. it should be pretty much free range thereafter .... should be a pretty easy one to succeed with ... let us know if clay is an issue good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: should have thought of this before i typed all that ....

Oh my gosh. NB that the link now goes to a totally different dead nursery auction in a different part of the state of NJ. That auctioneer is so thrifty they reuse their old URLS! "Finally, the North American Rock Garden Society's Mason-Dixon chapter will present "Monkey Puzzle Tree, a story of survival"" That's a bit ironically titled. Surely a plant with one of the lowest success rates on the east coast, otherwise you'd see them all over. I seem to recall Mr. Hill of the old Hill's Camellia gardens told me he'd tried several and they were impossible in the climate of DC...he refused to believe there was one in Silver Spring and said it had to be a China Fir. (it isn't) They've been sold as specialities since at least the early 80s and yet you never see them in old gardens. Betty's Azalea Ranch in West Fairfax used to publish a big fancy catalog and they listed them for an ungodly sum for the era, I think $200, but I did see them at the nursery in that time frame when I was a kid. (mid 80s) I think they were also listed by the Foxborough Nursery in NE Maryland, which until they went wholesale only in the early 1990s was the country's ne plus ultra source of rare mail order conifers and things like boxwood. (The wholesale list now is a sad shadow of those days and from the vibe I get having seen the current generation of the family at plant sales, they just see horticultural as a business not a passion.) I have personally killed a couple small ones and I know of other collectors with similar experiences. Chile has probably never had a dewpoint above 65F in the whole country and it shows in the behavior of plants from there. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sat, May 24, 14 at 12:53