Any time I visit
Avant Gardens, my heart leaps with anticipation: I can see their sensational dogwoods again. Sensational for at least three reasons: They are still rare, and so are a thrill to discover. They have indelibly memorable foliage. And (often) a striking overall habit. That they also bloom—these
are dogwoods, for heaven's sake—is by comparison just icing on the cake.
Given how showy a dogwood in full flower can be, these must be powerfully ornamental trees to upstage even that exciting a show. Indeed!
Here's the easiest: a variegated Korean dogwood hybrid called Wolf Eyes. What a show! The foliage almost out-competes the flowers. (I'll see if I can return to shoot this individual in bloom.) The Korean dogwood's usual wide greeting-the-sky habit, heavily fluffed with white-edge leaves. It's an easy tree to establish if you can provide a mostly-sun exposure, decent soil, and acceptable drainage in the Winter. Then you can just stand back and marvel.
If you want to work harder and worry more, consider one of both of these two, which are worth the
agita in that they are, if possible, even more thrilling. "Giant" dogwood is an accurate name for
Cornus contraversa: Old trees can be forty feet tall and thirty wide—twice the size of American dogwood. Even the straight green-leaved species of Giant dogwood should be used more. It's striking tiered branching habit adds a remarkable layered look to a tree that's impressive already just for sheer size.
The variegated cultivar makes a great tree a stunning one, with bright mostly-white leaves in large tiers.
This one at Avant Gardens is just an adolescent, still thinking through that tiered thing. Older trees are showstopping, especially when backed by darker foliage that shows what is, eventually, a planar gap between foliage layers that's a couple of feet thick.
But you can't buy variegated Giant dogwood at Home Depot, and even if you could, you probably will have trouble establishing it. The tree is hardy to Zone 5, but when young (which is the only size you can afford to buy) it's mightily afraid of less-than-perfect Winter drainage, as well as drought and/or hot Western sun in the Summer. So plant it where it gets morning sun only, where it's definitely higher than the surrounding garden, and in generously rich soil. Water deeply once a week in hot weather, and cross your fingers. If it gets through the first Winter, you're (usually) safe.
(Another option is to buy the largest one you can find, and hang the cost. But woe to you if you still don't give it afternoon shade, great drainage, and good soil.) No wonder the variegated Giant dogwood is a head-spinner. It's alive! (And notice that at Avant Gardens its bed is, indeed, higher than the surroundings. And that the tree has some shade from an enormous oak to the back.)
A bit easier is the variegated form of the alternate-leaved dogwood, C
ornus alternifolia 'Variegata', which at Avant Gardens is dramatically backed with purple beeches.
It has a similar tiered branching, so another common name is pagoda dogwood. (Giant dogwood is also called Pagoda dogwood. So shop for the latin name, not the common one.)
This is a half or even a third the size of the variegated Giant. Twelve feet would be fabulous. In my experience, it insists on the same culture as for the variegated Giant, although because alternifolia is much much hardier, it seems to be more tolerant of less than perfect siting when young.
Either tree, then, is a triumph, an automatic star of your landscape. And yes, both of them are a bit of Mt. Everest to establish, and you may or may not be up for the suspense, let alone the expense of trying again in a different spot, and then yet again in yet another spot.
I've taken the easy way out for the moment, with an alternifolia cultivar, gold-variegated, called Golden Shadows. I'll post on that later. So far so goot, but wow is it pokey.
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