More pics. Lighting and the breeze did not help me today even with the "real" camera and not just my phone.

I am thinking the inbound rain will knock off most of the remaining foliage so this might be it for the year.

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Getting flowers this year. Bet after a normal spring this would happen near May 1st. The Cornus floridas have been in flower for the last month, the Callery pears done for a few weeks for reference.

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Great pics...it's interesting to see he progression.

The flower pics I promised. Once again I bet in a normal year it would be flowering a couple weeks from now.

Notice the orientation of the flowers. They seem to all point upwards. IMO this should be taken into account when you plant it. Limb it up and no up close flowers to look at. The bees like it as well.

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Oh, and no apparent damage from that little frost we had last week.

Here is the next in a string of updates.

This summer was TERRIBLE! HOT HOT HOT, DRY DRY DRY! On a level not seen since the dust bowl

My Cornus controversa pulled through and even grew a bit but required watering. When it got thirsty there was visible wilting. Unfortunately I did not get to MOBOT to check on the big one there to see how it was doing or if they needed to water it.

The only reason I have some concern is I would hate to have to water a 40 foot tall tree which is not suited to the climate. Then again it was an absolutely terrible summer.

Fall color is subdued unlike Cornus Florida but it does take part in fall and the dark purple seems consistent and fairly long lasting.

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I love dogwoods. But this time of year they get my attention. I'm more of a C.Florida guy but this species is so much more better to me. I may consider getting one soon. Lol my dogoowd which was planted in april dosent have the trademark d.wood bark. What I like about the c.florida is the way you can see the tubular buds when the leaves fall :)

Thnx Tor for the chronology. Do you happen to know the hardiness rating for this plant? It may be something we could use in a number of settings.

BTW, we're in the very heart of Cornus stolonifera/sericea range. But those are shrubs, not trees. For fall color and then winter-long color with their bright red branches, they can't be beat. Troubles me to think of (And witness) the widespread destruction of their wet habitats. You know, so that new strip mall with car wash can go up.

+oM

MOBOT reports zone 5 hardiness. So far it has not been bothered in the least by my zone 6 winters. This is despite its late leaf retention.

Any spring updates?

Between whatever went wrong at photobucket and the photo upload decision here, keeping tabs in pictures is getting difficult.

So here is another shot of the red on the new growth. The late season snow and our wet spring seem not to have damaged it.

Although I do notice it will be flowering a whole month after last year.

Amazing how cold it's been!

Well we have come out of our first dry patch into a very mild week with some rain.

The fella looks pretty good and is growing well. A few interior leaves have a bit of color which is actually giving me hope for fall color in the future

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Hey hey, got some decent colors showing. We have been moist enough this fall and temps have dropped into the high twenties a couple nights.

This summer I had a problem probably with some borer killing a couple foot long branch ends. I snipped and never diagnosed the culprit if I recall. It has been a bad year with the tornado coming through and some late season foliage killers on other trees.

It seems all my imported trees, the Metasequoia, the Acer Palmatums and Griseums, the hated Callery Pear and the neighbor's Euonymus alatus (burning bush's) all retain their leaves late.

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I'm starting to think trees which change slowly or have a more complex blend colors in fall are more pleasing when they are larger. It is still not the in your face deep red of my Cornus floridas but three is probably the limit of those for one yard.

This was a fun post to follow. Don't recall seeing it before.

Beutifully canopy that tree has. Put a nice 5' ring of mulch around it to keep the roots cooler. Mulch will add a bit organic matter as well.

***
Posted by toronado3800 Z6 St. Louis (My Page) on
Tue, Nov 5, 13 at 12:15

It seems all my imported trees, the Metasequoia, the Acer Palmatums and Griseums, the hated Callery Pear and the neighbor's Euonymus alatus (burning bush's) all retain their leaves late.
***

Yup. Don't know why -- climate presumably. But even Siberian elm holds its leaves late & it's from -- uber-cold Siberia. I worry about early snows for such trees -- seen tough-wooded trees like English elm suffer damage from an early Nov snow 'cause it still had leaves.

And I'm getting to appreciate dogwoods other than the standard one. Red-osiers grow on my stream bank & a couple have reached respectable size (for a shrub) and are beautiful. The multiple-flower heads are more interesting up close, attract more bees, and the berry crops more decorative & more preferred by the birds.

Cornus controversa looks good -- the better flowers & fruits of the shrub dogwoods on a true (small) tree. Gotta find a space for one.

Wow, it came through the severe winter nicely. Its in the fifties and rainy out today so this IS a recent picture. What else is blooming at the same time to help people plan...my peonies, Gibraltar azalea, some of the alium. I'm noticing about a month's variance with bloom time. This being the latest.

FWIW, my regular Cornus florida dogwoods just got finished flowering and they did not flower that greatly, one looks near death. Cold winter or late cold snap I suppose.

Here are a couple fall shots. Its color is getting more noticable with size. Not the month long deep red show of Cornus florida but still good.

The whole tree.

How old is that tree and what height will it top out at?
And who is the little feller in the previous pic? lol

Ey info. How you doing?

The biggest and only other one I have ever seen is at the Missouri Botanical Garden and has a sign that claims it is 51 foot tall. It is at least as wide as tall. Their website says 40 x 40 is a reasonable expectation. I can never get a good pic of that whole tree.

Mine was a mail order transplant in the spring of 2010 so it is barely older than the munchkin in the picture.

I dig it. The wood doesn't feel super strong, especially the new redish purple growth but obviously it is not scared to branch ouy.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=b993

A pic of a Cornus controversa in my hometown (The Netherlands). Fall colour is not spectacular.

This spring seems a tad later than average after a late resurgence of winter a couple weeks back and a ton of rain since. Just getting leaves on things now. No sign of damage. I'll post flower pics in a couple weeks to help keep track of the bloom times from year to year.

<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Toronado3800/media/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg.html"; target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v366/Toronado3800/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg"; border="0" alt=" photo 20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg"/></a>

using Photobucket. Houzz sizes this thread oddly and hides the submit button on my Android's Mozilla and the Photo's tab does not work om the factory browser which at least has the submit option lol.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v366/Toronado3800/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Toronado3800/media/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg.html

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Toronado3800/media/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg.html][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v366/Toronado3800/Trees/20150412_112402_zpsb5mplqkj.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Yup you can't embed photobucket or any other pics than houzz pics. I just attach then directly from my phone to the thread.

Yeah, who knew, no photobucket. What a mistake on their part.

FWIW, my Dolphin browser both opened the old thread right so I can see the submit button (unlike Firefox) AND unlike my factory browser which saw the submit button, Dolphin lets me upload pics. Improvements lol.

Early May and the flowers are opening up. Cornus florida has been in bloom for some time and is probably ready to finish up.

Still growing. My sense of scale reference was chasing me around the yard today so I snapped some pics.

Later this year I'll have to trim off some lower branches to make life easier mowing.

Thanks for the update, toronado. Got a few tiny ones from Musserforest this yr to bolster up my stream-bank soil. The flowers are wonderfully intricate (tho unfortunately present themselves upward instead of sideways). The fruits are good bird-food in late summer/early fall.

I thought I would add mine to this thread, growing happily here in Ireland, planted in 2010. It is as tough as old boots and puts up with a lot of terrible weather.

Not the best photo, sorry.

Denis

Thanks for the pic mountainy man. Is yours flowering now?

Yes, most things are a couple of weeks behind normal, pretty terrible summer here so far.

Flowers again! A good number of my trees have some dead likbs or at least ones not in leaf yet or zapped by a cold spell. Not this one. I love the wide low oval. Can't get the riding mower under it though lol.

Nice - I like the vase-like form and dense foliage of the dogwood. Got a couple seedling started myself. They leafed out early, but 18F didn't burn 'em!

Close-up of flowers?

The individual flowers are dainty fellows.

Not much scent that I notice (I DO NOT have a very sensitive nose).

Bees seem to like them.

The flowers point upwards for the most part like a Tulip tree. This and the shape made me, and MOBOT apparently, decide to leave the lower branches on.

it flowers all at once it is quite noticable from a distance in my big front yard

Thanks -- the flowers are very intricate & similar to red-osier & pagoda dogwoods. I do detect a slight, odd smell from those mentioned dogwoods' flowers (flowering dogwood flowers have no scent AFAICT). Bees love them and birds the fruits. Below is a nearby pagoda dogwood:

and a stock pic of a Chinese dogwood:

How tall was it when you got it? Would you buy it again?

Mine? It was a small mail order fella in spring of 2010. Maybe 2 ft tall?

Yes I would order it again.

Beng, it sure does resemble those!

Its flowers and something about its stems also remind me of the "red twig" dogwood shrubs which sucker and root freely....I wonder...

Yeah, red-osier dogwood is also "red twig" dogwood. Grow along my stream & easy to propagate like willows (cut off a stem & push deep in the soil). Here's one started just like that on my lawn:

I just was looking at some pics I snapped yesterday and thought about thread necromancy (did I spell that right?).

Nothing real noteworthy...um, the rain which has kept me from mowing and using the telescope isn't beating the flowers too badly.

I'll probably also take a limb or two offthe bottom so I can get the mower under there as I get lazier lol.

Thanks, toronado. Mine are still small, and they come out too early here (as many things do) and get frost-damaged. Deer chew them too. Chance of frost in my frost-hollow next 2 weekends.

I dunno if I'd mess w/that fine vase-shape. Better to lay mulch to eliminate the need to mow there.....

I planted two bare root C. florida this year. Reading through this thread and watching your tree grow has made me excited to watch my little fellas grow up.

I guess the cracks are the bark maturing? It has been a bit since I visited the big one at MOBOT.

The most tramatic thing to happen to the tree this year is some mosquito repellant getting on it. Keep the "Off" away from your hostas btw.

We have not had that strong of wind to do the damage.

This is how these grow I assume?

The crack is prb'ly just from expansion -- don't see any sap leakage. Alot of wetness/moisture while leaves are expanding often lead to spotting on many tree-leaves, so wouldn't be worried about that -- you should see leaves on my trees from wetness & late frosts.

I assume from all the flowers it has fruit developing?

Yes it does have fruit developing. Probably less than you would think, just several for each flower cluster.

Although these last couple years it does seem like I've had a few dogwood leafed seedlings popping up throughout the non mowed parts of the property. I had been assuming they were from the redtwigs I had....maybe this is the culprit lol.

Well, I have more dogwood seedlings popping up in the elderberry, honeysuckle (yuck) and walnut grove. I'm gonna let them go and see what they turn out to be.

The big fella here had a good summer. Fall is a bit lackluster. It has been VERY dry and unseasonally warm. The leaves look less dry than on an older Cornus florida in my yard but many have fallen off with less color.

Thanks for the update. I like the vase-form. Many trees here are having a lackluster color.

this was not the easiest spring with a warm week or two then a cold snap. Some other trees around here got zapped.

oh, and trim before taking pictures.

Huh, gardenweb still has the old thread.

I might have to limb it up just a little to ride the mower under it one of these years.

Very nice specimen. I like those types of dogwoods, with multi-flowered heads and round berries that birds love.