Photo: Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped · Wikimedia Commons

Gray Dogwood

Scientific name: 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.

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Saplings ship bare-root or in a pot, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

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Wildlife valueDrought tolerantTolerates wet soilFall colorHedge or screenTolerates shadeWinter interestErosion controlBears young

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 4–10 ft
USDA zones: 4–8
Growth rate: Slow
Flowers: May to June
Fruit: Berries, August to October
First crop: 4 to 5 years
Mature spread: 15 ft
Sun: Full, Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Dry, Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Stream banks, dry uplands, rocky ground, the forest understory, old fields and edges
Native range: 31 states, north and west to North Dakota and south to Florida
List all 31
Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin
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Gray dogwood is the thicket dogwood of old fields. It is overlooked because it lacks the bracts of flowering dogwood and suckers into a dome-shaped colony. The berries are 28 to 37 percent fat by dry weight. At a banding station where they were the main fruit, migrating warblers and sparrows laid on more fat than on wild grape. The twigs are reddish, the older bark gray, the fall leaves a dusky purple-red. 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.

Size, growth and what to expect

Gray dogwood grows slowly, about the foot a year our growth estimator assumes for a slow shrub. In a yard expect 4 to 10 feet, though it can reach 10 to 15 feet. The USDA's conservation fact sheet puts it at seldom more than 6 feet at maturity.

Flat clusters of white flowers open from late May into June. The white berries are about a quarter inch across and ripen from August into October on bright red stalks that stay on through winter. More than 98 kinds of birds use it for fruit, shelter and nesting. The name panicled dogwood refers to the branched flower clusters.

It grows wild from Maine to Manitoba, south to Florida and west to Missouri and Oklahoma, in thickets, wet meadows, prairie margins and along streams. It does poorly on the coastal plain.

How to grow Gray Dogwood

Gray dogwood grows in sun or shade, best in sun. It takes clay, sand, rock and limestone, wet in spring or dry in August. A colony 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. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the 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 slow, faster in sun, and the colony spreads by suckers. Fruit begins at 4 or 5 years and comes every year after; each flower carries both male and female parts, 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.

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