Sequoia 'Aptos Blue' (Coast Redwood 'Aptos Blue')

'Aptos Blue' is one of the most popular landscape selections of Coast Redwood. Dense conical form with blue-green needles that hold color well year-round. Reaches 40 to 60 feet in landscape settings, tighter and bluer than typical seedlings.

Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the world's tallest tree. An evergreen conifer endemic to the narrow coastal fog belt running from southern Oregon's Curry County south through northern California's Coast Range. In its native range, Coast Redwood forests harbor the federally threatened marbled murrelet (which nests exclusively in the canopy of old-growth redwoods), spotted owls, Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, and pileated woodpeckers.

Redwoods depend on the coastal fog belt to mitigate summer drought. They absorb moisture directly from fog through their needles and thrive on deep, moist, alluvial soils. They are a wind-pollinated conifer, so they don't produce nectar for pollinators, but their massive form and fibrous reddish bark shelter thousands of other organisms.

Pomo, Kashaya Pomo, Tolowa, Yurok, Mendocino, and Tlingit peoples used redwood for canoes, building material, baskets, ceremonial items, and medicine. The soft straight-grained wood was split into planks for homes and carved for tools.

On coastal suitability: Redwoods prefer the humid fog belt but are salt-sensitive. In the wild they are typically set back from the immediate surf zone by a buffer of coastal grassland. For a protected inland coastal site like Langlois they do beautifully; for open oceanfront dunes, choose Sitka spruce or Shore pine instead.

Pair with Polystichum munitum, Oxalis oregana, Vaccinium ovatum, Gaultheria shallon, and Thuja plicata to recreate a genuine coastal redwood understory.