Photo: Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Gray Dogwood
Cornus racemosa
Also called panicled dogwood, gray-stemmed dogwood, grey dogwood.
White berries on red stalks, about a third fat, feed migrating warblers and sparrows in September; a thicket shrub for dry or wet ground, sun or shade.
Wildlife valueDrought tolerantTolerates wet soilFall colorScreeningTolerates shade
- Type
- Shrub
- Mature height
- 4–10 ft
- USDA zones
- 4–8
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Sun
- Full · Part · Shade
- Soil moisture
- Dry · Average · Wet
210
Gray dogwood is the thicket dogwood of old fields, roadsides, wood edges and stream banks from Maine and Ontario west to Minnesota and south through Pennsylvania and Maryland to the Virginia mountains and Arkansas. Domed clusters of small creamy flowers open in late May and June, and by late summer they are white berries on stalks that turn bright red and stay red into winter after the birds strip the fruit. The berries are 28 to 37 percent fat by dry weight, and at a Lake Ontario banding station where gray dogwood was the main fruit, migrating warblers and sparrows laid on more fat than where wild grape dominated. Cardinals, bluebirds, flickers and grosbeaks take the fruit, bobwhite eat the seeds and buds, the spring azure breeds on the flower clusters and the dense colonies hide nests. Perfect for a fencerow, a wet or dry bank that needs holding, or a screen at the back of a lot where a thicket is welcome.
It is overlooked because it has none of the bracts of flowering dogwood and because it suckers into a dome-shaped colony, which is why conservation nurseries plant it for hedges, banks and cover. The twigs are reddish, the older bark gray, the fall leaves a dusky purple-red. Deer browse it hard in winter, it has no serious pests and it grows on limestone outcrops, dry ridgetops and wet meadows alike, though the NRCS notes it is not well adapted to the coastal plain.
How to grow Gray Dogwood
Gray dogwood grows in sun or shade, zones 4 through 8, best in sun. It takes clay, sand, rock and limestone, wet in spring or dry in August; the NRCS says it is not well adapted to the coastal plain. Expect 4 to 10 feet in most yards or 10 to 15 on rich moist ground, and a colony that keeps widening, so set plants 4 feet apart for a screen and leave a mowed strip at the edge to stop it.
Plant dormant bare-root or potted shrubs from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, crown at the soil line, native soil back in, mulch ring clear of the stems. Clean the pulp off the stones in September or October and sow at once, a quarter to a half inch deep in an outdoor bed under hardware cloth; the stones want about two months of warmth and then three of cold, so some come up the first spring and the rest the second. Stored seed gets 60 days warm and 90 in the refrigerator before a spring sowing.
Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short. Deer browse it hard in winter and rabbits nip the stems, so cage young plants for two years, and keep mulch thin so voles do not nest at the base. It needs no pruning; a ragged colony can be cut to the ground in late winter and will resprout.
Growth is medium, faster in sun, and the colony spreads by suckers. Fruit begins at 4 or 5 years and comes every year after; the flowers have both sexes, so a planting of a few seedlings will fruit. The berries go within weeks and the red stalks stay into winter; the only pest is a harmless bud gall and the only chore is the spread.
Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.
- The habitat around a tree is part of the tree
- Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods
- Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second
- Native trees and shrubs for birds: caterpillars, fruit, mast, nests and winter cover, month by month
- Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees
More like this
_-_Mississauga%2C_Ontario_01.jpg){kind=link}