Transplants are no use to bald cypress.

There are very few coniferous (cone bearing) trees that are deciduous; and because most prefer cooler winters, very few are ever seen in mild climates. The bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, happens to be one of the few deciduous coniferous trees that really could be more popular than it is, since it seems to be right at home in mild climates. It is native to coastal riparian regions from Maryland to Florida to eastern Texas, and up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers as far as Indiana.
The soft foliage resembles that of coastal redwood in California, but is more finely textured. It is light green through most of the year, then turns paper bag brown before trees go bare for winter. The tiny individual leaves are shaped like flat pine needles, and are not much more than half an inch long. The ruddy or grayish brown bark is finely shaggy.
In the wild, mature bald cypress trees can get more than a hundred feet tall with trunks more than five feet wide. Some of the largest trees have buttressed trunks as wide as fifteen feet! Trees in swamps develop distended growth from their roots known as 'knees', which can stand several feet tall! Fortunately, bald cypress rarely get half as tall or develop such massive trunks where well exposed in landscapes.

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, Gardening Examiner

Horticulturist, arborist and garden columnist, Tony Tomeo has always enjoyed gardening, and spent his childhood growing fruits and vegetables, and propagating perennials. After attaining his BS in horticulture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he grew horticultural crops through the 1990s, from...

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