We often hear about plants with all-round interest. I’m not always convinced by that claim, but when it comes to dogwood (Cornus), I can see the point.
I believe the first two pictures show the same plant growing at Gresgarth Garden in different seasons, but there are several varieties in the glade there, so I might be wrong. It’s a wonderful garden – the one with the pebble mosaic paths.
I haven’t noticed many dogwoods with variegated leaves, but I could hardly miss this one at York Gate near Leeds.
My last is patterned with dancing flowers, all of them held well above the foliage. The flowers are stylised and elegant, each petal ending in a pink-edged point. I quite like the crinkled green leaves too.
This one is part of the Cornus collection in the display gardens at Bridgemere Garden World.
I’m sharing these for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Susan Rushton 
They are doggone beautiful.
Groan… but thanks! 🙂
Lovely. We have a very large one near us, which I featured a year or so back.
I am fairly sure these trees would be mathematicians, were they people.
Not too many dogwoods in central Maine—there are a few—so it’s never been on my radar. But gosh oh gosh! As Timothy noted, doggone beautiful.
There are some really interesting cultivars here.
Something else we don’t have here that I miss. East Texas, around Palestine, has beautiful dogwoods. In fact there is a park called “Davy Dogwood Park,” and there is a state park (Rust) that has a train ride through the woods, which is beautiful when dogwoods bloom. We also had them in Virginia.
I’d love to see those. It is a weird feeling to miss a plant. I once nearly wept to see bluebells when I was in America and knew they would be flowering at home.
Sadly, a few Cornus kousa trees needed to be cut down here because of their messy fruit. There is only one left that still makes abundant fruit. I should have made jelly with it for competition at the Santa Cruz Mountains Harvest Festival.
I’ve never tried the jelly.
I never have either. I do not know of anyone who has. The fruit is palatable, but it is full of too many hard seeds to eat straightaway.
The Cornus kousa are wonderful flowering dogwoods, I would always make room for at least one in my garden.
I once saw a lovely dogwood underplanted with white thyme – at least I think it was a dogwood. I’ll have to check.
Aren’t they gorgeous? Love the pink one and the one with variegated leaves. There is one growing in the George walk I feature, I’ll have a look on Tuesday (car needs servicing so I shall have a few hours to kill) and see if it is flowering.
I might be a bit early. These are from my files, needless to say.
I’m sure it was June when I saw one in another garden on the Lizard, so I might be in luck!
Managed to get to see it in early June – only just opening and not as beautiful as yours. They might be better now so I ought to go back and have another look.
Nice blog
Thank you.
My pleasure, followed you 💓
The dogwood fruits look a lot like soccer balls to me, and that would certainly make it a favorite of my grandson’s. The bit of blush on the variegated leaves is lovely. But the gasp came with the dancing flowers. Elegant is the exact word! They look very formal and manicured, and I love the look!
The seeds are more like pink golf balls. Those dancing flowers have something of a floating quality, like ballerinas being carried by their leading men, with the branches providing the support.
My favorite dogwood is the traditional white Cornus florida. Doesn’t grow here very well, though. I grow a lot of shrub dogwoods – mostly C. racemosa and C. sericea.
Those are quite different. Do yours have the white berries?
Yes, and they’re quite popular with birds.