If you are searching for a tree that will add shade, color, texture, and value to your home and landscape design, consider a flowering dogwood. These trees add enormous appeal all throughout the year, but they provide intense color and texture during the spring season thanks to their floral blooms in varying colors of white or pink. While they are durable trees, flowering dogwoods require proper planting and care to ensure they are healthy and attractive. This guide will help you plant and maintain your flowering dogwoods.

Planting

Choosing the right location for your flowering dogwood is imperative since the tree grows better and faster in certain areas.

While surprising for most people to learn, these trees grow faster in shady locations. When planted in a shadier area, your dogwood may grow up to 40 foot tall. If planted in a location that receives more sun, the dogwood may grow up to 15 foot tall.

Because it prefers shade, planting the dogwood in a wooded area near other trees is ideal. It is important to remember its height, as well, when choosing a location. Because it can grow so tall and wide, make sure the tree is not planted too close to your home. Water the tree and surrounding soil thoroughly after planting. It is also helpful to surround the tree base with mulch or pine straw. This will help lock moisture in.

Maintaining

Continue refilling the mulch or pine straw around your tree to ensure there is adequate moisture for your tree throughout the warmer, drier seasons. Pruning your flowering dogwood is also necessary. Pruning will help your dogwood develop and maintain an appealing shape, but it will also prevent fungal growth and disease that can kill your tree.

Be sure to trim the tree in the late part of fall or early part of winter, since the dogwood is dormant and not actively growing during this period. Remove any limbs that appear discolored or damaged. Also, remove branches that are growing too low to the ground. These branches and limbs will decrease the look of your tree by weighing the entire canopy down. The early part of spring and first few weeks of fall are the best times to fertilize your flowering dogwood tree.

Consider having the soil around your tree tested to determine the best fertilizer for your tree. Too much nitrogen can inhibit floral blooms, but not enough nitrogen may also affect the tree's growth. In most cases, an all-purpose, slow-release fertilizer that contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium is best. 

Contact a company like S.A. Total Tree Service for more information and assistance. 

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