The Redwoods on the South Slope Didn't Make It

Field note 260825 · August 25, 2026

Coast redwood keeps coming up as a candidate tree for a warmer western Oregon, and every time it does, I think about the ones I planted on our south side. They didn't make it. So when an OSU Tree School session in August took on growing redwoods and giant sequoia in Oregon, I went in with a personal stake in the answer.

What happened here

The south-side planting went in under the forest canopy. Within about five years, every one of those trees was gone. It's a humbling thing to plant a tree that can live for two thousand years and lose it in five.

Two to four still hang on along a south-facing slope on the north side of the property. They're growing, but they look thirsty to me, held back by how little moisture that slope keeps through the summer.

A tree I remember

Out in the Coast Range, off Highway 34, a friend's forest property had a very large old redwood, big enough that the house had been built around it. When I first saw it in the 1980s, it already looked like it had always been there. An early settler may have planted it.

Then a hard freeze caught it. The tree was badly damaged and took years to come back. I've never pinned down which winter did it. The big western Oregon cold snaps of 1983, 1989, and 1990 are all suspects.

The lesson stuck with me. A redwood can do fine here for decades and still meet one rare cold snap that knocks it back. Rare adds up over the long life of a redwood. I suspect hard freezes help set the northern and inland edge of the redwood's range, along with summer moisture. Climate change may redraw that map.

What the class said

The session kept circling back to one idea: match the tree to the site, and don't let enthusiasm do the choosing.

• Inland redwoods need help. They want winter rain plus summer fog, or soil that stays moist in summer.

• Seed source matters. Conifers, redwood especially, are adapted to where their seed came from. Planting the wrong source outside the species' range can leave a tree under stress for its whole life.

• Somebody has to buy the logs. The bigger Oregon mills that handle redwood are in other parts of the state.

That last point brought to mind the hybrid cottonwood plantings scattered around the Willamette Valley. Growing trees to a marketable size is one problem. Having somewhere nearby to sell them is another, and the trees don't solve that one for you.

Where I've landed, for now

Redwood isn't the replacement tree here. Douglas-fir stays the backbone of the place.

I'm curious about Douglas-fir grown from seed farther south, around Roseburg or Grants Pass, which may handle heat and drought better. That's a hunch, not a plan. That decision gets kicked down the road to the time after a significant harvest triggers a reforestation plan. The same seed-source warning applies, so I'll check OSU and Oregon Department of Forestry guidance on seed zones before buying anything.

Meanwhile, the survivors get promoted to official trial trees. I'll find them, tag them, measure and photograph them, and put them on the property map. A handful of stubborn redwoods that made it here will tell me more than any general recommendation.

If you remember that freeze on Highway 34, or you're coaxing redwoods along somewhere inland yourself, I'd like to hear how it's gone.