Boy, connietri, you sure have a fixation on these colorful-twigged dogwoods, huh? Anyway, the picture of the big ol' yellow-twig dogwood in the blog post is striking and dramatic, but I see no reason to think it's not real. They can get quite large, and while I'm not sure I've ever seen one that big in-person, it doesn't seem implausible at all. Here's the key, though: I don't know where that picture was taken, but I guaran-damn-tee you it wasn't in mid-Tennessee. Up north, those plants are well adapted and grow huge if they're allowed to. Here, in the South, you'd be lucky to get a yellow-twig dogwood that tall if you stacked three of them on top of one another. They just don't grow well enough around here to even approach that size. And actually, I would argue that that's mostly a good thing. I think they're really more effective in the landscape if they're kept as medium-sized clumping shrubs that get stooled back to ground level every couple of years. So I think it's just as well that they won't get as monstrous here as they do up in the frozen zones. Again, as I suggested before, if you want something to grow in your area that will look like the photo, I believe you'll be better off with one of the colorful-twigged willows, like 'Flame.'

Just one man's opinion.

Oh, this is too much. That entire posting, all the dogwoods, are fantastic. And, you say they grow well up north?!?! Off to do some web searching. I've never even heard of these dogwoods before now!

LOL@I guaran-damn-tee you! I hear ya. Not here. Up north, maybe? Wow.

Yes, I do have a bit of a fixation right now on the colorfully-twigged shrubbery options. :) The new garden for me this year is the fall garden, and I want to get the bones in this spring, in the next couple of weeks hopefully. I'm off all next week, so it's almost Plant-A-Palooza time for me!

Wow. I have never seen one quite that big, or trained into a tree form for that matter. My red twig dogwood is getting fairly big now. Several of the older twigs are bigger around than my wrist. And I saw one at a local arboretum that had twigs twice that size. They can get big with age!
CMK

Well the yellow one is pretty cool, just have never seen one like it in any gardens. Perhaps in a Public garden, but not any personal gardens.

It does look like they trim it back sharply, to get all the branching uniform and such a bright color.

Dogwoods get the best color on new growth, so you do need to trim to get color. Summer color on those red and yellow twig dogwood is almost unnoticable for me. Bark goes grayish on the red, greenish on the yellow-twigs. With my red-twigged, I removed older growth each year since it would have almost no winter color. Also the type red-twigged I had, was a spreader, making clumps, rather than growing towards one trunk. I did try the trunk thing for a couple years, not trimming some old growth wood. I did even trim the upper branching a bit, it just never got good color so I cut it down at the ground. Unattended dogwood "patches" just get scruffy, tall thicket-like appearance going. Very little color without the annual trim job. This would be both red and yellow.

I am in mid-Michigan, does get cold here. Even in "wild" places, I have never seen a big trunk on the colored dogwoods like the photo. I would believe that speciman has been lovingly cared for, trimmed to grow that way. Not typical form in my experience, even up here in the cold!

I think that they are probably willows that have been pollarded. The bark texture & color and twig color looks right for willow, and if you click on the photo it takes you to the original photo site where someone suggests willow and the original poster says that it might well be willow. The thing about the internet is that there often isn't an editor or fact checker, so you have to look at whether the source is reliable. ;>)

I have grown both yellow and red-twigged dogwoods, and seen a bunch grown by others. They don't get that big; maybe to the top of the first story on a building, but not over the roof peak.

nhbabs, you're right. I wasn't thinking critically enough when looking at the photo, and I didn't think to click on it. I still think it's not completely inconceivable that a yellow-twig dogwood could get that big. I swear I once saw one at an old farmhouse in Upstate New York, I think, that was solidly 20 feet tall, and it could certainly have gotten even taller. But it still didn't look like the one in the picture. The biggest giveaway, as you say, is the bark. Even large, old Cornus sericea don't develop such dark, deeply furrowed bark like that, but willows do. So, yes, I'm pretty sure that you're exactly right, and it is a pollarded willow.

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.

The picture is salix alba 'vitellina' or golden willow. I have some just like this in my wet area. Unlike the picture however, I only let my trunks grow about 3 feet before before I coppiced them the first time. Now I cut them back every other year to keep them shrubs and to have bright colored stems.