Native Plants

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Monday - March 26, 2007

From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Seed and Plant Sources
Title: Availability of Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) for Central Texas
Answered by: Damon Waitt

QUESTION:

I'd like to buy a flowering dogwood tree. Love the fall berries and spring flowers. I haven't had been able to find them at the nurseries I frequent (Great Outdoors, Natural Gardener, Breed, Barton Springs). Any advice? And please don't try to sell me on the rough leaf. Thanks!

ANSWER:

Sometimes considered the most spectacular of the native, flowering trees, Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) is a 20-40 ft., single- or multi-trunked tree with a spreading crown and long-lasting, showy, white and pink spring blooms. Alas, the flowering dogwood makes its home in the eastern deciduous forest which explains why you won't find it at central Texas nurseries. The range of flowering dogwood extends from extreme southwestern Maine west to New York, extreme southern Ontario, central Michigan, central Illinois, and central Missouri; south to extreme southeast Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, east Texas; and east to north Florida. In addition, it prefers partial shade and moist well-drained soil. Best suited to nutrient-rich forest soils, it often becomes stressed when planted in relatively poor urban soil. Cornus drummondii (roughleaf dogwood) on the other hand....