Huntington:
"Dogwood City"

If you don't have a dogwood tree or two in your yard, chances are your neighbors do. Beautiful pink and white dogwoods in bloom signal the arrival of spring in the Tri-State.

The abundance of dogwoods in Huntington is no accident. It's the result of a beautification project begun in the early 1930s by the Huntington Garden Club, according to an upcoming article in the spring issue of Huntington Quarterly magazine.

Following the success of this early effort, the Huntington Council of Garden Clubs undertook a five-year project to stimulate citywide interest in the planting of dogwoods in 1949. Within five years, all the local garden clubs had planted more than 6,000 dogwoods in parks and cemeteries, and encouraged many homeowners to plant dogwoods in their own yards.

Lavalette Nursery supplied many of the dogwoods planted in public areas in the early 1950s.

But many of these dogwoods are succumbing to a disease called dogwood anthracnose, which is decimating the dogwood population in the wild.

While this disease may also threaten dogwoods in the home landscape, Lavalette Nursery's Mark Springer says, "The main thing that kills dogwoods is damage to the trunk from lawn mowers and string trimmers." Such damage opens the way for insects and disease.

"The regular flowering dogwood, Cornis florida, is susceptible to diseases," Mark explains. "So many people are going to Cornus kousa, the Chinese dogwood, which blooms later so the bloom is out when the foliage is on. The form and leaf are similar. It's a very good small tree."

But Mark says many of his customers still prefer the old-fashioned native dogwood, which is still available at the nursery.

Hardier, Asian Dogwoods

Constellation

Stellar Pink

Kousa Chinensis

Kousa Satomi

Dogwoods need well drained soil, Mark advises. "Keep mulch around them to avoid damage from lawn mowers and string trimmers. Those are the biggies." For more information about planting and caring for dogwoods, visit this link.

Responding to the decline of native dogwoods, nurseries like Monrovia have developed new varieties by crossing the natives with the hardier Asian types.

The Cornus x varieties prefer full to part shade and grow about 20 to 25 feet high at maturity. The Cornus kousas will take full sun and grow to about 20 feet. These new types, which are available at Lavalette, include:

• Cornus x Rutcan Constellation. This perfect landscape tree for small gardens has star-like snow white flowers in spring. Fall color adds a bonus of vivid scarlet. Vigor plus high disease and borer resistance sets it apart from older varieties.

• Cornus x Rutban Aurora. Vigor plus high disease and borer resistance makes an exceptional early flowering dogwood tree for sheltered landscapes. Abundant, large, creamy white flowers cover the entire tree in early spring followed by fiery fall foliage.

• Cornus x Rutgan Stellar Pink. The only pink in this exceptionally disease and borer resistant dogwood series. Near perfect understory accent tree bears soft, shell pink flowers in early spring followed by a show of autumn foliage.

• Cornus kousa chinensis. Attractive horizontal tiers of branches help make this small deciduous tree popular. Splendid profusion of large white bracts followed in fall by hanging red fruit. Autumn leaves have red-scarlet tints.

• Cornus kousa Satomi. Attractive horizontal tiers of branches help make this small tree popular. Splendid pink to red bracts followed in fall by hanging red fruit. Autumn leaves have purple-red tints.