About Red Twig Dogwood

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By eHow Contributing Writer

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Red Twig Dogwood are beautiful shrubs that add vivid color to a winter garden. The bright red or yellow stems contrast beautifully with white snow. They are easy to grow and are especially popular as landscape plants.
These shrubs are also planted in gardens designed to attract birds. American goldfinches prefer to nest in dogwood shrubs. The berries remain on the shrub through the winter and are eaten by songbirds as well as ducks, quails and partridges.

Identification

There are about 50 Dogwood species in the genus Cornus. Most of them are deciduous trees or shrubs native to the Northern Hemisphere. Several species are stoloniferous shrubs, which grow naturally in moist soil such as riversides. Some of these species have beautifully colored stems, and three of the shrubby species are cultivated primarily for the color of their stems.
Cornus alba is native to Asia, Cornus sericea is native to North America and Cornus sanguinea is native to Europe. All three species are very similar in appearance, and all of them have red stems. They are all referred to by the common name of Red Twig Dogwood, although there are many other common names for these shrubs as well. Red Osier Dogwood, Western Dogwood and Redstem Dogwood are frequently used even in commercial cultivation. If you want a specific set of characteristics for your garden, be sure you are getting the right plant. Order your Red Twig Dogwood using the exact botanical name, including the name of the cultivar.

Size

Red Twig Dogwoods are shrubs with many stems. They grow rapidly, and most species have a mature height of between 4 and 8 feet. Mature shrubs are sometimes 10 feet wide.
These dogwoods have bright red stems in the winter, and stem color is more pronounced during the winter. Young stems have a brighter color than old stems, which are usually brown. Some cultivars have yellow or bright green stems.
Dogwood shrubs have leaves that are between 2 and 4 inches in length. They are green during the growing season and red in the fall. Some cultivars have variegated leaves.
Red Twig Dogwoods have rather nondescript flowers. They bloom in the spring.

Benefits

These shrubs are usually grown massed or in drifts, since the colored stems show up best as a group. They add winter interest to the garden because the colored stems show up vividly against the snow. Many gardeners like to site them so that they can be seen from inside the house.
Red Twig Dogwoods also create a pleasant hedge. Because of their extensive root systems, they can be useful for preventing soil erosion on steep banks.

Considerations

Red Twig Dogwood is hardy in USDA zones 3 to 8. They are great plants for wet areas, although they can tolerate dry conditions after they are well established. The stems show the best color when the shrubs are grown in full sun.
Gardeners promote better color by cutting these shrubs back severely in late winter or early spring. They new growth gives better color the following year.

Types

There are so many cultivars of Red Twig Dogwood. Cultivars with particularly bright red stems include Cardinal, Elegantissima and Coloradoensis. Flaviramea is a cultivar with yellow stems. It is sometimes called a yellow twigged dogwood. Midwinter Fire has stems of red, orange and yellow. Cultivars with variegated leaves include Silver and Gold, whose leaves have white margins, and White Gold. These are both variants of Flaviramea. Especially small cultivars include Alleman's Compact, which reaches a mature height of four feet. Kelseyi is grows to three feet tall with a spread of three feet. Isanti Dwarf and Pumila are dwarf forms.