Gray Dogwood or Grey Dogwood

(Cornaceae - Dogwood Family)

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• Form
  • usually a medium- to large-sized ornamental shrub (sometimes pruned into a small single- to multi-trunked ornamental tree)
  • the true multistemmed shrub form often matures at 8' tall by 8' wide (but if culturally pruned and maintained to a few stems, these can become arching trunks whose canopy can reach 15' tall by 15' wide)
  • shrub forms have an upright clump growth habit in youth, becoming either a spreading mound or open and straggly with age
  • tree forms are also available (from seedling selections or cultural pruning) which do not sucker from the base, having one to several trunks with an upright oval growth habit in youth, becoming rounded with age
  • slow to medium growth rate (except for rapid-growing suckers that arise from the base of established shrubs)

• Culture
  • full sun to full shade; performs best in full sun to partial sun
  • prefers moist, well-drained soils in full sun, but is adaptable to many adverse conditions, including poor soils, dry soils, wet soils, compacted soils, heat, and drought
  • propagated by rooted stem cuttings or by seeds
  • Dogwood Family, with few disease or pest problems
  • moderately available, in ball and burlap or container form
  • the shrub form tends to sucker so profusely that it forms colonies that are excellent for naturalized areas or for embankments in need of erosion control
  • Gray Dogwood is somewhat sensitive to being transplanted in Autumn, and care should be taken to amend the soil, fertilize, water thoroughly, mulch adequately, and avoid Winter salt spray, to enhance survival chances during the first Winter (this advisory is less critical for those shrubs transplanted from containers, rather than root-pruned ball and burlap specimens)

• Foliage
  • medium green to gray-green leaves are about 3" long, opposite, narrow elliptical, and acuminate, with major leaf veins parallel to the curving leaf margins
  • fall color is a mixture of green, purple, and red in October and is usually not showy

• Flowers
  • creamy hemispherical inflorescences are up to 2" in diameter, effective for one week in late May or early June

• Fruits
  • creamy white (rarely porcelain blue), round 0.25" fruits mature in clusters in August and September
  • fruits are not persistent due to rapid abscission and bird/squirrel feeding, but the persistent bright red hemispherical pedicels (fruiting stalks) retain their color into early Winter and have a long-lasting appeal

• Twigs
  • very thin stems are dark red to purplish-red
  • buds are lighter-colored and very small

• Trunk
  • densely multistemmed forms (the normal situation) do not form sufficient caliper on individual stems to become trunks, but individual shrubs pruned to a few stems develop into several prominent trunks that arch with age
  • bark changes from reddish-brown stems to gray branches (hence the common name) with age, with the bark becoming broken into distinctly square blocks, very much like the common Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) in bark appearance

• Function
  • shrub form is useful for mass plantings, borders, embankments, non-thorny informal barrier hedges, wildlife attraction, naturalization, and at the edge of bodies of water
  • tree form is useful for foundations, entranceways, borders, or as a specimen

• Texture
  • fine texture in foliage and when bare
  • thick density in foliage and medium to thick density when bare

• Assets
  • adaptable to wet or dry sites and poor soils
  • suckering and dense shrub habit is excellent for embankment erosion control or in naturalized areas
  • persistent red fruit stalks are attractive into early Winter
  • early Summer creamy-white inflorescences
  • late Summer white (or porcelain blue) fruits
  • single- or multitrunked tree forms are fine ornamental trees that are underutilized in the modern landscape

• Liabilities
  • dense shrub form often gets out of hand due to straggliness and suckering with age (this can be remedied by rejuvenation pruning to the ground)

• Habitat
  • zones 5 to 8
  • native to the Eastern and Midwestern United States and Southern Canada

• Alternates
  • shrubs tolerant of moist to wet sites that are also good for naturalizing (Hamamelis vernalis, Ilex verticillata, Lindera benzoin, Myrica pensylvanica, Salix purpurea, etc.)
  • shrubs for Winter interest(Chionanthus retusus, Cornus sericea, Corylus avellana 'Contorta', Hamamelis x intermedia, Myrica pensylvanica, etc.)

• Variants
  • Gray Dogwood, although rarely sold in "tree form" (that is, as a single- or multi-trunked small tree, with the suckers pruned away), can be a handsome small ornamental tree, good for foundations, entranceways, borders, or as a specimen
  • Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa), is very similar in appearance to Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum), Bloodtwig Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), and Giant Gray Dogwood (Cornus drummondii), whether is shrub or tree form

• Translation
  • Cornus is the Latin name for Dogwood.
  • racemosa refers to the type of compound flower arrangement in the inflorescence (a raceme).

• Purpose
  • Gray Dogwood is a multi-season interest, highly adaptable shrub that is ideally suited for wet sites, dry sites, naturalized areas, neglected areas, borders, embankments, or mass plantings, in sunny to shady sites.

• Summary
  • Cornus racemosa is a spreading, dense, stoloniferous shrub, subtlely attractive in flower, fruit, and fruiting stalk, and tolerant of wet or dry sites.