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Old 26-06-2007, 06:45 PM posted to rec.gardens
sweetft5 sweetft5 is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jun 2007
Posts: 2
Default bringing a dogwood back from its death bed

Hello, I have a flowering dogwood I am trying to save from my boxer's
attempt of killing it. Last fall this tree stood about 4ft tall and
through the winter my boxer puppy started bitting off the branches. I
thought I could teach her to leave it alone (wrong) but she got every
last branch and at that point I thought it was a goner and so I just
let her use it as a chew toy. She got the main trunk down to about
1ft. This spring I pulled it out so I could put in a new tree and the
roots looked great, I checked under the bark and amazingly it was
green, so I planted it into a pot to see if I could get it to grow and
sure enough a few weeks later a few buds started sprouting from the
trunk. I have now planted it back in the yard and it is doing great,
although it now looks like a small shrub. My question is should I cut
all of the branches off except one (the highest one?) that will become
the new trunk or do I just let it grow as is? I am not sure if the
main trunk will gain height with it being severed and all. Thanks for
any advice.