Ever since visiting Boston’s Arnold Arboretum and seeing some of the most amazing bonsai trees, I have wanted to start some of my own. I did some research online and decided that I would like to start the whole process straight from the beginning with seeds. The only thing left was to decide on what type of tree to get started. The website seedrack.com sells an excellent variety of tree seeds for potential bonsais. This is where I came across the Dawn Redwood, a tree that was thought to be extinct just over 60 years ago. Once re-discovered in China, it was the Arnold Arboretum that helped to distribute the tree around the world for re-population. Being one of the trees in my top choices anyway, it was only fitting to start with this since it was the Arnold Arboretum bonsai collection that inspired this.
I ordered seeds, seed starter, and pots from seedrack.com, and they sent instructions to help me get started. The Dawn Redwood was surprisingly straight forward, sow the seeds, water, give it some light, and hope for the best. The only curve is the seeds have a less than 50% germination rate, so I placed four seeds in the pot for this first attempt. I should have a pretty good chance of getting something to grow. Follow along with this daily photo blog, and hopefully we can learn something about the Dawn Redwood and Bonsai trees in general as we watch this thing grow.
