Dogwoods
/Dogwoods are a tree I associate with living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast. They existed in east Texas - near enough to where I grew up - but I must not have been there when they were blooming. So I really didn’t see dogwoods at all until I was in my 30s. Now they are one of my favorite trees.
The native dogwoods have creamy flowers that have a hint of pink; some popular hybrids have more than a hint. This year those hybrids were the ones that caught my eye the most at the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden. Dogwood leaves have a gentle shape and branches are so flexible that they and the flowers seem to float in the understory of the forest trees. The pictures below are from this past week.
In the fall the seeds are reddish orange and the leaves turn early to a deep red. They are a standout tree in the fall although you have to be close enough to the forest to see them hiding under the tulip poplars and oaks.
There was a disease that killed off some of the dogwoods in the forests near us and all the way to Shenandoah. Enough survived that they now seem to be coming back. I see more healthy ones every year. They are relatively slow growing trees so it is unusual to see large ones. I tend to think of those large ones as being forest treasures tht are particularly visible in spring and fall.
