{"title":"Dogwoods (Cornus)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat everyone calls a dogwood flower is four bracts. The actual flowers are the small green cluster at the center, and the white or pink display around them is modified leaf, which is why the show lasts for weeks rather than days. The common name most likely comes from the old English \u003cem\u003edag\u003c\/em\u003e, a skewer or dagger, for wood hard enough to make them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e is the native, the tree that lights the understory of Southern woods in early April before the leaves come, and 'Suwanee Squat' is a low, spreading dwarf form for a small space. \u003cem\u003eCornus kousa\u003c\/em\u003e blooms a month later, after leafing out, holds pointed bracts that age to pink, and follows with strange raspberry-like fruit; the Asian species also carries far better resistance to the anthracnose that has thinned wild dogwood populations across the East. Give either one high shade, acid soil with organic matter worked in, and no drought in the first years.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"cornus-florida-suwanee-squat","title":"Cornus florida 'Suwanee Squat'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThere is a version of the flowering dogwood almost nobody has met. \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e 'Suwanee Squat' was found in Suwannee County, Florida, by Bob Simons, a forest ecologist who spent half a century protecting the wild hardwood country of north Florida.\u003c\/strong\u003e As a young man in the early 1970s he walked a mixed-hardwood hammock outside Gainesville, decided the place was worth saving, and talked ten landowners and the state into making it San Felasco Hammock; that became the pattern of his life. A man who knew that kind of forest the way most of us know our own street is exactly the sort to notice a dogwood doing something a dogwood is not supposed to do. Woodlanders introduced his low, sprawling oddity to cultivation, and the plant has stayed scarce ever since, the kind of tree you mostly hear about secondhand from someone who saw one and never got over it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere the species reaches for the canopy, 'Suwanee Squat' does the opposite, running wide and staying close to the ground, branches layering outward in flat, horizontal tiers. Our stock plant has sat at roughly waist height and four feet across for years now, in no apparent hurry; given a long enough run the tree may slowly gain a little more height, but height has never been the point. The point is the spread, and the architecture of that spread, the way these low limbs pool at the foot of taller things rather than competing with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are pure \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e: four creamy white bracts cupped around a knot of small true flowers, blooming heavily in early spring. Strung out along those low limbs, the bracts read as a scattered horizontal drift instead of the familiar upright cloud, catching light down at the woodland floor where you do not expect to find it. Come autumn the leaves turn through red and burgundy and bronze, a quieter second season. And unlike the contorted, sullen-looking weeping dogwoods this selection sometimes gets shelved beside, 'Suwanee Squat' keeps clean, well-mannered foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the tree partial shade to shade and rich, well-drained soil, and resist the urge to plant deep; dogwoods like to sit high, the root flare just grazing the soil line. Let the low limbs cascade over a low wall, settle the pitch of a slope, or build out the layered edge of a shaded bed. \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e is woven deep into the eastern woods and into most of our earliest garden memories. 'Suwanee Squat' is that same familiar tree, lying down, found by a man who spent his life making sure such places stayed standing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057847472243,"sku":"CORN-FLOR-SUWA-SQUA-01G","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1350.jpg?v=1720137637"},{"product_id":"cornus-kousa","title":"Cornus kousa","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis elegant small tree carries a graceful, vase-shaped habit that rounds out with age. Blooming two to three weeks after \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the kousa dogwood opens striking, pointed flower bracts in late spring to early summer, extending the dogwood season. The bracts surround clusters of tiny true flowers in a star-like display that sets this dogwood apart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn late summer come vibrant, raspberry-like fruits, red and rounded, that draw birds and are edible for people too, sweet-pulped if a little soft in texture. The exfoliating bark peels away in patches, revealing a mosaic of rich brown, gray, and tan that adds real winter beauty once the branches are bare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNotably more drought-tolerant and more disease-resistant than \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the kousa dogwood suits a wide range of North American climates, at home in both city gardens and naturalized landscapes. Whether set as a standout specimen or woven into a border, this dogwood offers four seasons of interest, from lush foliage to flowers, fruit, and bark.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057847734387,"sku":"CORN-KOUS-01G","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CornuskousaMBG4.jpg?v=1731871642"},{"product_id":"cornus-kousa-var-chinensis","title":"Cornus kousa var. chinensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis Chinese dogwood is a spreading, small to medium deciduous tree with clean foliage and showy white-bracted flowers. Unlike the native American flowering dogwood, the bracts are sharply pointed. The tree flowers about a month later than \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, and is apparently immune or resistant to some of the disease problems that trouble \u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e in certain areas. A fine ornamental for an open, semi-shady lawn or border.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a variety of the kousa dogwood, this Chinese form carries the same star-like early-summer bloom, glossy foliage that reddens in fall, and raspberry-like fruit the birds enjoy, on a slightly more open, spreading frame. The showy bracts open white and often blush pink as they age, floating against fresh green since the tree blooms after leafing out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite the Chinese dogwood as a specimen near a patio or path, or at a woodland edge among azaleas and other understory companions, where the late-spring bracts read against a darker backdrop. Give high shade or morning sun with afternoon shelter in the hottest gardens, and enjoy a dogwood that shrugs off much of the disease that troubles the natives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057848029299,"sku":"CORN-KOUS-VAR-CHIN-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-49.jpg?v=1720137656"},{"product_id":"cornus-florida-welchs-junior-miss","title":"Cornus florida \"Welch's Junior Miss\"","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCornus florida\u003c\/em\u003e, the flowering dogwood, is the beloved understory tree of the eastern North American woods, widely planted for the great show of white spring bracts (the true flowers are the small green knot at the center), and, in selections like this one, pink. A deciduous woodland tree that grows in moist, well-drained soil in sun or high, dappled shade, the dogwood rewards careful planting: set the root flare high, and never plant too deep.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Welch's Junior Miss' is a fine pink-flowered selection of Deep South provenance, which makes this cultivar the best pink dogwood for the warmer zones, where many northern pinks color poorly in the heat. The tree was selected by the late 'Chick' Welch of Wilmer, Alabama, near Mobile, and carries a warm, clear pink that holds up in the southern spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite 'Welch's Junior Miss' as a specimen near a patio, a path, or a window framed for spring, or at a woodland edge among native azaleas and other understory companions, where the pink bracts can be read against a darker backdrop. Give high shade or morning sun with afternoon shelter in the Deep South, and the glossy red fall fruit will draw songbirds while the foliage turns wine-red.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057851666547,"sku":"CORN-FLOR-WELC-JUNI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1972.jpg?v=1720137684"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/dogwoods.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}