I have several dogwood trees, some were here before the house was
built. Two have died. Tree boring insects were the culprit. We have
lots of woodpeckers and birds which help. Dogwoods do better mulched
(this keeps weed wackers away from the trunks.) They are very
disease prone, but there are varieties that are disease resistant.
This year my town (Oak Ridge) has officially become part of the
Dogwood Festival trail!

Cut off any dead limbs and keep the bark clean.

I used the dead dogwood and turned some knobs on my lathe. Beautiful
pink-red wood, and very dense.


On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 20:31:54 -0400, "Betsy" -0 wrote:

I inherited two rather spindly looking dogwoods when I moved into this house
almost 5 years ago. I adore dogwoods, but these are tall, thinnish, too
close together, and all the lower branches had either died out or been
stupidly pruned.

They are native white Florida types. I am pretty sure they have
anthracnose. (Baltimore area)

Two questions:

First, has anyone ever successfully saved a dogwood from this disease? Is
there any treatment I should try?

Second, if there is no hope, and they will ultimately succumb, what would
happen if I planted a new Kousa dogwood under them, to fill in as they die
off? Would that be smart or dumb?

Can Kousas be pruned somewhat to have the same elegant, oriental type shape
of the Florida species, or would that be foolish?

P.S. All the local dogwoods look pretty bad this year. Are some years hard
on them? We've had a horrible, wet, long winter.