Wolf Eyes Chinese Dogwood

Variegated Chinese Dogwood
Cornus kousa 'Wolf Eyes'
(KOR-nus) (KOO-suh)

This tree was featured on this site on September 18, 2006.

The previous post spotlights the real reason to grow this tree; the beautiful foliage. Today’s tree is from a different planting of ‘Wolf Eyes’ than the first post. Both plantings are located in the same garden and there seems to be some variation between the two. These trees get more sun and are growing in a much wetter area. They have been planted for about 7 or 8 years and last year was, by far, the heaviest flowering. The flowers are unusual when presented en masse. They are like a lime green and they persisted for weeks. Quite a nice show. The trees located in the shadier spot have never bloomed in 10 years.

I still love this tree and highly recommend it with a couple of hours of shade per day. There were a lot of the reddish-orange fruits this year. They looked quite nice up against the variegated foliage. I noticed them one day and didn’t have my camera and when I returned three days later to take a picture the birds had eaten all of them.

This is the same flower from a few steps back. The foliage is nicely ruffled.

These pictures were taken June 10th at 3:30 pm. Having all this new gear and no flowers hasn't been easy! It has been bitterly cold out with strong gusty winds. Our over night temperature was -1 F. It is warming up nicely today.