Scraggy looking dogwood

[Rachel]

Hey all,

I'm new to this gardening thing, my husband and I just bought our first house, and wow how much work it is! I was walking around the garden today to see what was coming into bud (every day is a new discovery) and found a dogwood tree in the backyard that my husband had originally targeted to come down (we inherited a yard that was LESS than well cared for, lots of these are saplings and suckers that are just crowding each other out). Its kind of a funky looking tree, in a funky place. Its about 20 feet tall with no branches until about 17 feet, and what is up there is really really sparse. Is there anything I can do to encourage growth so that it will get a bit fuller? It really looks like one tall branch with a little tiny bit of lopsided fireworks at the top...

Also, will a tree that tall respond to a transplant? If I can get it to look halfway decent, I'd like to move it somewhere where we can enjoy it.

Thanks so much!!

--Rachel

[Frank Logullo]

In my experience, Dogwood has a big taproot and is hard to transplant. I had one that got shaded and started to die. Nice wood and nice firewood. Dogwoods are not endangered species. I'd cut it down and put a new one from nursery where you want it. Frank

[William Wagner]

As I understand it dogwoods don¹t like to be pruned. I would go with Frank ?s idea. I¹d also look into the many types of Kousa dogwoods available and note the varied color¹s and bloom times that happen to be disease resistant too.

Have Fun!

Bill

Bill