Sanguina - mine are very prone to leaf & twig disease. Once it's established it grows very fast & tall, sends out alot of runners that need to be dug-out & is a maintenance issue for me. If I didn't cut them back 3x/yr they'd be >12'h w/ gray trunks. No critters chew on this one, but I plan to dig them out soon. The amazing stem color is not worth the chemicals & labor. Plus, this type has tiny t-shape hairs on the leaves that stick in your skin & feel like nettles - some people are more sensitive than others - but I need long sleeves to trim this dogwood. Alba & redtwig - Both deer & rabbits, & maybe foxes chew on them. They prefer alba, then move to the redtwig. It was difficult to get a good balanced shape to the shrubs, as the rabbits go for the thin colored stems coming up from the base. In winter the snowdrifts allows them to cut the stems 24" up - in spring they cut at the base. I moved a redtwig to a sheltered but dry spot for the rabbits, & now it's only 3'h, but 5'w due to their goofy pruning, & just noticed it's suffering cuz something dug a nest/hole at it's base & alot of roots are exposed.

Hi there, I may be a little late to the party, but have been doing some research on the best way to prune my Red Twigs and came across this post. I have 5 of them planted that are acting as a fence for me, along a 25 foot stretch. They provide a nice visual barrier from my neighbor and the street. They are in full sun, and I'd expect they are planted about 5 feet apart, Even at that space, they are competing with each other. They are nice and big, and easily are 8-10 feet tall. I love the variety of look they have over the course of the year. I really like the look of them, and understand why you'd want a nice long row of them. But I'd encourage you to rethink your strategy about planting 25 of them in a 50 foot space unless you have a particularly small variety. I think mine are planted too close as it is, and they are competing with each other. They also require a boat load of pruning each year to keep them looking healthy, as they are very aggressive growers. They end up looking really scraggly and unbalanced at this spacing and without lots of pruning. You mention that you want a formal look. Seems to me that that many would just end up being crowded and messy. You don't seem afraid of work given some of the other plans you mention, but I can tell you from my own experience, I spend more time pruning my red twigs than most of my other gardening tasks, and I have a fair amount of garden space aside from this. I also haven't been good at taking out a third each year to keep them manageable so I could be doing even more pruning than I do. You'll be setting yourself up for lots of pruning even with only 10 red twigs in that space. Best of luck with your hedge row. Maybe you'll post a picture.

I don't know anything about redtwig dogwoods, and I can't remember them ever being discussed on this forum. You can probably get a good answer on the Shrubs or Trees forum. Sherry

Hi, Kristen, it's nice to hear your voice (so to speak)! I have it in several spots that aren't particularly wet, but this is a fairly wet climate, unlike yours. Mine get watered only for two or three months in the summer, when we normally get little to no rain. I don't water regularly or generously, but they never dry out completely deep down. They grow wild here in year-round creekbeds, but also in small roadside ditches that are dry from roughly June to September. The ditch plants don't grow as fast as the creek/bog plants. Jeanne