The dogwoods range from tiny, 6-inch Cornus canadensis to 75-foot Cornus nuttallii whose large white flowers are shown above in the photograph by Jeannette Grossman. Dogwoods flower in white, pink, red, and yellow shades.
In addition to the common sorts, they come in exciting weeping, variegated-leaf, and double-white forms. And, as most of us readily will agree, the flowering dogwood is America’s finest and best-loved ornamental tree.
Wherever it thrives, nature paints our land in springtime with a lavish and spectacular hand.
Dogwood is native to the woodlands from southern Canada to Florida and inland as far west as Ontario, Minnesota, Texas, and along our West Coast.
Flowering Dogwood Pink Varieties
While the showy, snow-white, and pink varieties of flowering dogwood have endeared themselves to many generations of us, a new brilliant red is proving delightful in broadening the dogwood color spectrum, together with the bright yellow of an increasingly popular shrub dogwood.
Nor are the dogwood’s flowers its only virtue, for throughout the year, it lends grace and beauty to the land and gardens it adorns.
In autumn, dogwood stages a second major performance when its clusters of berries turn a brilliant, warm coral-red, and its foliage is tinted with orange, crimson, and scarlet.
And, even when it is bare of leaf, its velvety silver-gray, richly sculptured bark and the delicate and exquisite pattern of its branches give further Winter beauty.
Cornus Genus Member
The dogwoods are members of the Cornus genus, of which there are about 40 species, including 16 natives to the United States. However, only one species is found in the Southern Hemisphere and grows in Peru.
I lived several years in that hemisphere, and I know what it is to be without the dogwood. The other 39 species grow on the North American, Western Asiatic, and European continents.
We cultivate two dozen species in the United States, including 12 native ones and 12 we have introduced from Asia and Europe.
Only three species of the 40 are flowering tree-type dogwoods, and the rest are shrubby plants. One or more of our native species of Cornus are found in nearly every state except in extremely arid regions.
Eastern Flowering Dogwood Needs Summer Warmth
Our Eastern flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, usually ranges from 20’ to 25’ feet, but a few grow to 40’ feet.
When the flowering dogwood grows inland in the East in areas colder than those nearest to the seaboard, its young top growth is occasionally killed back.
Consequently, it grows less tall and frequently has several trunks, while its more coastal cousins are taller and, more often, are single-trunked. It thrives only where there is considerable summer warmth.
Dogwood’s Varying Heights
The shrub dogwoods vary in height from a few inches to about 15-foot shrubs. The smallest of them, the bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), is barely 6” inches tall and is a woody herb.
Yet, its little flowers have the same petal-like bracts of the flowering tree dogwoods and give rise to scarlet fruit, too.
It grows wild in Northern North America and Northern Asia, extending into the Arctic and on mountaintops southward. Its berries, set during the very short Arctic summers, are eaten and relished by the Eskimos.
The rest of the shrub dogwoods bear small clustered flowers but lack the largely white, pink, and red bracts, the so-called petals of the flowering tree dogwoods.
How To Grow Shrub Dogwoods
They thrive in soils of all sorts and demand little care. They grow in full sun or shade if it is not too dense. Most will grow in moist places, yet, they are resistant to drought.
Brilliant Red Stems In Winter
One might choose from these dogwood shrub species, which can be grown almost anywhere: Cornus alba and C. stolonifera, and especially from the sibirica variety of C. albs.
C. stolonifera is the red-osier, the whitish-fruited dogwood flourishes wild from Kentucky northward to Newfoundland.
The bright wintertime hue of the stems that form the four to six-foot bushes of these is a great delight in one’s garden.
For contrast, you might add the C. sanguinea variety viridissima, for its bright green twigs, and C. stolonifera, the variety flaviramea, for its yellow stems.
Coral Beauty
A recently introduced type of C. alba, the variety sibirica, is called simply Coral Beauty, and it is by far the most beautiful and colorful in this group. When its leaves fall in autumn, its bare branches turn a glowing coral-pink color that persists until spring.
Against the winter’s snow, it gives warmth and a bright accent to your garden. Its colorful branches, like those of any in the group, may be cut for indoor winter display.
With the advent of spring, its branches, again like those of all varieties in the group, turn green. Coral Beauty makes a 4- to 5-foot bush of compact growth habit. From its autumn flowers, pale blueberries are set.
All of the red-, yellow-, and green-twigged shrub dogwoods which were mentioned above should be severely pruned to remove the old branches and encourage the growth of new ones, which have the brightest color.
Cornelian Cherry
A little-known and very unusual shrub dogwood is the delightful variegated leaf from Cornus mas variety elegantissima, the variegated-leaf Cornelian cherry. Its green foliage is beautifully edged in creamy white and flushed with red.
It matures to a height of from 4′ to 6′ feet and may be used as a single specimen plant or in group plantings.
Corpus vies, the Cornelian cherry is a shrub species from Europe and Asia that has been cultivated since antiquity. It was very well known in the earliest American gardens, but forsythia has almost entirely replaced it.
It bears bright yellow flowers in March and early April in the latitude of New York. Cornus Officinalis, the Japanese Cornelian cherry and a more recent introduction, is native to Japan.
It is an outstanding plant and should gain in popularity. It bears clustered yellow flowers profusely in February and March—earlier than the forsythia—in the latitude of New York. It can be grown easily anywhere; it is very cold-hardy.
Useful Shrub Dogwood
The previous is the important and highly useful shrub dogwoods. Finally, the three species of the conspicuously-flowered tree-type of flowering dogwood include the enormously popular Eastern-grown Cornus florida.
The very exquisite Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, which, as we shall see shortly, can be used in the East by grafting, and the exotic Asiatic Cornus kousa, which is well-suited for growth in much of the United States and is a wonderful companion plant for our native flowering species since it flowers later.
Outstanding Varieties Of Eastern Flowering Dogwood
It is somewhat paradoxical that C. Florida, our spectacular Eastern flowering dogwood, was so slow in becoming a popular landscaping material for the garden and street.
The great beauty of the famous dogwood season at Valley Forge brought it to the attention of many.
Today, it finds a vital landscape acceptance throughout wide sectors. There are doubtless many strains of the white C. Florida; some have larger, more glistening white and a greater abundance of flowers than others.
A few nurserymen have selected some of the better ones and offered their progeny commercially. Two outstanding white varieties, so derived to my knowledge, are `White Cloud’ and ‘Weaver.’
Northward from North Georgia and Alabama, C. florida variety rubra, commonly called pink or red-flowering dogwood, thrives and is frequently more popular for garden use than white. The two, when used together, are most complementary, the white making a perfect foil for the pink.
Pink Dogwood
Unfortunately, many pink dogwoods are not of good color, some being little more than off-whites, others dull magentas, and not clear pinks. Nevertheless, many nurseries have selected and propagated good pinks, and one can choose from them.
However, the actual shade of pink may be influenced by the characteristics of one’s soil. For example, the new patented red-flowering dogwood, ‘Cherokee Chief,’ is a vivid, vibrant red far more colorful than the long-known pink rubra.
It probably is the most colorful flowering tree outside of the tropics. An unusual feature is its leafing out in spring in bright crimson, with a gradual change to green.
One might very well use either the pink or red with white (but never the pink with red); and, to avoid color clashes, neither red nor pink should be placed too near late-flowering Japanese cherries, nor near some of the pink crabs or Kampferi azaleas.
A Double-Flowered Dogwood
In 1913, a North Carolina nursery introduced into commerce what still is believed to be the only double-flowering dogwood, the white C. florida variety pluribracteata, or variety flare plena (both names know it).
It has from eight to 12 bracts (petals) rather than the usual four and is commonly called gardenia-flowered dogwood.
Other unusual and rare forms are the C. florida variety pendula, a white flowering dogwood of weeping habit, and the C. florida variety welchii, a variegated-leaf flowering dogwood.
Cornus Florida
Cornus florida of all varieties is a forest tree that, in nature, grows under the canopy of larger trees. Consequently, it will thrive in the shade or do equally well in partial shade or full sun. However, it develops its most spectacular autumn foliage when grown in full sun.
While it grows into a smallish tree, it is, nevertheless, rather ideally suited to the smaller garden because it stands crowded and can grow under larger trees. In addition, it does best in well-drained soils with a pH from 5.0 (acid) to 7.0 (neutral, alkaline borderline).
Row To Transplant Dogwood
Dogwood is difficult to transplant. Because of this, container-grown plants are ideal; otherwise, the plant should be balled-and-burlapped and transplanted in spring after flowering. Three- to four-foot specimens transplant the easiest.
Pacific Dogwood
The Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, the majestic western representative of the flowering dogwood, grows to a height of 75 feet and usually has six white bracts, which often are tinged pink. They are a third to a half larger than those of C. florida.
This makes it very showy. It grows wild from Southern California into British Columbia, where it is easily cultivated. But it does not thrive in the East. However, grafting can be grown on C. florida rootstock in the East. Some nurserymen offer it so grafted.
Dogwoods From Asia
The Asiatic representatives of the flowering dogwoods include Cornus kousa, from Japan, and the C. kousa variety chinensis from China and Korea.
These were introduced into the United States in 1907 by E. H. Wilson. The Japanese and Chinese sorts are quite similar, but the latter is probably superior, with the more showy bracts.
Their great advantage is that they flower in June in the latitude of New York and, with a blossoming life of nearly a month, greatly extend our dogwood flowering season.
They may attain a height of from 12’ to 15’ feet; they flower after their green leaves are fully developed; they display brilliant scarlet autumn foliage; their white bracts lack the mysterious notch and overlap to give a fuller flower; they set pink strawberry-like clusters of fruit in fall. Both are harder than C. florida.
44659 by Oscar K. Moore