Alternate leaf Dogwood Quick Growth Guide

Photo:

peganum from Small Dole, England, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Alternate leaf dogwood has, as one would expect, alternate leaves, which turn to maroon foliage in the fall. When it is not competing with nearby trees or buildings, its branches will tier or layer horizontally, giving the appearance of a layered tierred pagoda with upturned branches. It has a fibrous, spreading root system and prefers a cool root zone. This dogwood can reach a height of 15 to 25 feet. It grows in both moist and dry forests, as well as forest margins, stream banks, and fields.

In Hardiness zone 5, it fruit will typically mature around august first, at which time a feeding frenzy by Cow Birds might be obeserved.

Quick Growing Guide

Ritchie Feed and Seed Ad

Botanical Name: Cornus alternifolia

Also Called: Pagoda Dogwood

En français: Cornouiller à feuilles alterne

Colour:

Blooms:

Water: Low water requirement

Pollinators:

Hardiness Zones:

This alternate leaf dogwood should be pruned every few years as branches tend to grow into available space, perhaps distorting the trees natural shape (of looking like a layered pagoda)

Provides cover and nesting sites. Dry, bitter berries are winter food for birds and mammals. Larval food source for Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta).

Its natural habitat: Understory of deciduous forests, thickets, open woods, hillsides and ravine slopes, along streams.

Comments

Leave a Reply

More From Gardening Calendar

Staghorn Sumac Is Dioecious

See a stunning display of color in the fall with Staghorn Sumac! These dioecious shrubs bloom with both male & female flowers, and produce showy pyramidal fruiting clusters. Enjoy its velvety, antler-like branches and hard-to-cover areas with poorer soils or naturalize your area with this adaptable and low-maintenance shrub.

How to Grow the Delicate Harebell

Admire the delicate and graceful harebell wildflower with its deep bluish-purple flowers, native to North America and Europe, that are eaten raw, used to make dye, and believed to give witches the power of transformation. A perfect addition to the rock garden that grows through summer and fall, and pollinated by hummingbirds, butterflies and bees.

It’s Wild in Puerto Vallarta!

Donate to the Vallarta Botanical Garden and protect wildlife! Be part of a growing effort to purchase and preserve buffer zones where animals and plants can live free from human incursion. Help us document the creatures and plants living in these areas with amazing camera trap and scientific survey results. Your donations are greatly appreciated!