Dogwoods

[Nyboy]

Do dogwoods leaf out later then other trees? I planted 6 dogwood trees last summer. While all the other trees are leafing out ,not one dogwood is showing any sign of life. What are the chances not one lived? They are all planted in different parts of the yard.

 

[majorcatfish]

dogwoods are a very hard to plant and keep alive.
a lot of nurseries that sell them, will not warranty them.

 

[thistlebloom]

My dogwood is always one of the last to leaf out. Give them a few more weeks. To check for life you can take your thumbnail and gently scrape a twig to see if the tissue is green.

 

[Nyboy]

Thanks i feel better yours are last to leafout. I didn't know they where so hard to keep alive. Fingers crossed.

 

[Nyboy]

Very happy 4 are just starting to leafout, 2 I still have fingers crossed.

 

[so lucky]

Anybody know why they are hard to keep alive?

 

[Nyboy]

Anybody know why they are hard to keep alive?

This really surprized me, because they grow wild along the parkways here.

 

[canesisters]

I think it might have something to do with the transplanting. When I worked at a state park, we would go through the woods tagging them in the spring and then go back in the winter and dig them up to move (around picnic areas, etc). We would be doing good to have 1/2 of them live. My folks have planted 3 nursery grown ones in their front yard. All have died. They do GREAT where they sprout naturally, but really seem to struggle when re-planted somewhere.

 

[thistlebloom]

I believe it may have something to do with their shallow root system. It would be easy to plant too deeply, and because the root system is shallow they can suffer from that. They also like moist conditions but not soggy, and do best in slightly acidic soil.

I have one nursery grown Cornus florida that was a ball and burlap tree. I planted it in my lawn area, in it's own planter space ( not in the turf in other words). It grew but didn't flourish. Last year I transplanted it to the off lawn shrub area where it is more of an understory environment. I wasn't super careful, and because time was so short for me I didn't prepare a nice hole. I'm embarrassed to admit it was more of a yank it out plop it in operation. :/

But it's growing! It has begun to leaf out and I think it will be better in it's new place. Unfortunately the local moose have done their usual tip pruning so once again I didn't get blooms.

I have three others that I bought bareroot at an event that takes place every Mothers Day weekend. Lawyers nursery in Montana brings semis full of bareroot stock and fills a building at the Spokane fairgrounds. Trees are super cheap, but everything is truly bareroot,
there is nothing packed around the roots. Not everything survives, but for the price, you just have to expect that.

Anyway, I paid 5 bucks apiece for those little guys, about 3 years ago and they are doing great.

 

[Nyboy]

I thought deer where bad, moose must do a lot more damage.