How to Grow and Care for Dogwoods

How to Grow and Care for Dogwoods Cornus spp.

Looking for beautiful, fascinating plants that amaze, astound, and astonish? Sounds like you’re in need of a dogwood or two.

It’s rare for plants to have attractive leaves, bark, flowers, fruits, and forms. For most plants, usually at least one of those qualities is considered aesthetically meh, if not bleh.

Not dogwoods, though – those have a rating of five stars pretty much across the board.

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And even though they’re metaphorically and literally overshadowed by larger trees, understory species like dogwoods have their merits. For a gardener looking to pepper their landscape with pretty ornamentals that don’t dwarf their home, Cornus species have a lot to offer.

So strap yourself in, dear reader. We’ll be discussing how to cultivate these lovely plants and how to best use them in your landscape. We’ll also cover a handful of our favorite species.

Here’s what we’ll be getting into:

Containing 57 currently recognized species of trees, shrubs, subshrubs, and even perennial ground covers, the Cornus genus is part of the Cornaceae family along with its sister genus Alangium.

Collectively hardy in USDA Zones 2 to 10, species of Cornus are distributed across the Northern Hemisphere in Asia, Europe, and North America.

In the United States, you can pretty much find a species of dogwood in any region of the country, save for the hottest and driest of climates.

Taxonomists have identified four clades within the genus: blue- or white-fruited types, big-bract types, dwarf types, and cornelian cherries, though these descriptions are seldom used by gardeners