Willow does make a lot more sense than dogwood. I just figured I hadn't heard of this new variety! I do trim my Dappled Willow back severely each year, removing almost all the twiggy growth from last year. This gets the shrub sized willow, back to the trunk branching area, keeps it smaller for the location. That willow will replace it with about 3ft of growth by fall. Cutting back will ensure the new growth produced is VERY white leaved, stays pretty light colored until late August for best effect. Willows do seem to enjoy being cut back, certainly look much nicer and neat with the new, uniform growth. Trunk is getting thicker, even though rather short on my willow bush. I get no white leaves at all, unless the shrub is trimmed back hard each year. Those white leaves do brighten a shady spot, so the shrub is quite attractive most of the season. Dappled Willow might be a summer alternative for color, planted near the red or yellow dogwoods!! They all like damp ground. I just trimmed that dappled willow, want to get the old stuff off before shrub uses energy to get leaves going, Waste of stored energy on stems that will be cut off anyway. Better to use that stored energy to send up totally new growth. I leave the old branches on all winter, in case the cold wants to freeze stuff badly. Better to freeze what will be trimmed, than the bigger, more important branches by the trunk area. I will be taking off the leaders on my tree willows, to keep them shorter at about 7ft, develop their root systems. They are all planted in a wet area of the pasture, so good roots to drink the excess water is their purpose. Saw rows of such plantings in a TV show on the Netherlands, along the pasture edges of the drainage ditches. They were attractive with short height, full swaying branches in the crown. Evidently they are trimmed completely off every few years to control the height. Very CUTE to me! Those trees drink a LOT of water by the ditches, help flood control a lot, are a good solution for the farmers.

connietri, just out of curiosity, are you certain that what you were looking at was a dogwood? Like gardengal48 said, I've never seen red- or yellow-twig dogwoods grafted in the manner you described, although I'm sure it's possible. About this time last year, however, I did see a guy at one of those makeshift garden center set-ups in a strip mall parking lot here in North Carolina who was selling colorful-twigged willows grafted in a way that sounds sort of similar to what you described. The plants weren't labeled, and I really wasn't interested in them, so I'm not sure exactly what species or varieties either the stock or the scion was. But they were definitely willows and not dogwoods. Frankly, here in the humid mid-South where I am and you are, red- and yellow-twig dogwoods can be hard to keep happy and healthy, and willows may be better, albeit still not exactly trouble-free. There are a lot of kinds of willows with young twigs that are very colorful in the winter in a way that's similar to the dogwoods, in the red-orange-yellow range. Personally, I've done very well with a variety called 'Flame,' which has grown much better for me than any of those dogwoods. So could it perhaps have been something like that that you saw at the farmers' market? A willow could superficially resemble a dogwood, but it differs in having very different looking buds, and buds and branches that are arranged alternately, as opposed to oppositely in the case of almost all dogwoods. Just a thought.

Rachel, You are free to take my shrubs! I've never done this exchange thing so please let me know how we are supposed to contact each other to get this taken care of...

Hi Shartlansberg, Welcome.....I have a thought and a question. You don't say where you are (when you have a moment add that info to your user/screen name as others above have) I think it is drought. Very dry here in MA and I see signs all over of plant stress. All my small greentwig dogwoods are yellow and its only mid August. If you water it won't make any diference to the leaves. They will probably not push out new ones at this date. However, if you plants are at the point of death because of thirst do water them from now going into winter so their root system can be robust enough. Second, You may not have noticed but this is a 10 year old "thread". That is really old; pre-cambian times in computer social websites time. May I ask how you found this thread.? Did you just go to Houzz/ or Gardenweb or Google and do a search about something like "what's up with my rtdogwood?" And this link was one of your choices? then, I assume, you tagged your question onto the thread. You didn't do anything wrong. However, it is better to post your own new question. Some people won't add a comment to a "stale" dated post. Your question may be slightly different and would get a different answer. And it wll much easier for you to track answers to a question under your own name and date rather than someone else's. I'm sure you'll get good answers here because NE gardeners are a diverse and knowledgable group who grow all kinds of plants: annuals, perennials, groundcovers, trees, shrubs etc. . But there's also a 'shrubs' forum, a 'trees forum'.....etc.where 'experts' hang out. Thanks for your help....and thanks for putting in your zone and geographical location next to your name. Marie