'Cherokee Chief' Pink Flowering Dogwood - Pink Flowering Dogwood Trees

There are a half-dozen pink dogwoods (Cornus florida var rubra) in our immediate neighborhood. While they were in full bloom in April, I walked down the road & took a few pictures of the largest & my favorite. Three of the four photos on this page are of that big one, but one of the two close-ups (the second photo) is from the house next door to the house with the twenty-five-foot pink dogwood.

Pink dogwoods must exist in this neighborhood at the rate of one to three per block, & that's fewer than there are of our locally native white western dogwoods (of which I can see three without turning my head while standing on the sidewalk in front of the house).

There is an old belief that dogwoods like partial shade, but the fact is, they are healthier in full sun so long as they are provided with sufficient irrigation. When grown in the sun they gain height & width more rapidly, have more leaves & many more flowers. It requires soil with good drainage but is otherwise forgiving of a wide range of soil conditions. It is not awfully heat-hardy & should not be grown above Zone 8.

The pink dogwood's flowers of late April & early May are followed by bright red fruits in clusters. Though theoretically edible they have insufficient flavor to be harvested for human use, but squirrels & larger birds love them.

copyright Â© by Paghat the Ratgirl