Dogwood 'Sunshine'

With a virtue for every season, this hard to find and easy to grow Dogwood is garden worthy. It will establish quickly and doesn’t mind boggy soils.

The glorious, golden to chartreuse leaves of spring age to green in summer then turn rich red and purple in autumn before falling to reveal upright burgundy stems in winter.

The upright thicket of wine red stems show well in the winter garden adding a beautiful structure to your beds. Stand alone, or in clumps Cornus ‘Sunshine’ will create a memorable display. The best colour is from second year stems, this allows you the indulgence of picking some for a vase display while giving the plant a nice prune at the same time.

In spring and early summer the branches have clusters of little white blooms that beneficial insect such as bees and butterflies adore. As the flowers finished they are followed by small white (occasionally blue blushed) ornamental berries (inedible to us but the birds love them).

Dogwood ‘Sunshine’ grows best in humus rich, moist, well drained soils. It isn’t too fussy but you will get better colour from the stems in these conditions. Getting at least six hours of sun a day will also encourage optimal colour. Water in, it takes around four weeks for plant roots to penetrate the surrounding soil, then once established they are quite dry tolerant. In saying that they will take a big of moisture so boggy soils aren’t a problem.

They will gradually form a larger clump through underground stems.

The botanical name, Cornus, is termed for the bark, from the Latin, cornu, which means hard and bony, sericea means silky for the smooth bark. It’s subsp. Occidentalis means ‘of the West’. It is commonly known as Red Twig Dogwood or Shrubby Dogwood.