Tatarian Dogwood is a fast-growing, multi-stemmed, suckering, deciduousshrub providing stunning fall color, attractive berries and showy redstems. A spectacular plant for most seasons its thicket of red stems turnbright crimson in the winter radiating beautifully from the base.Flat-topped clusters of tiny yellowish-white flowers, 6 cm wide, appear inlate spring and sometimes sporadically flower in summer. While notespecially showy, the flowers attract happy butterflies and pollinators. Inmidsummer, clusters of bluish-white berries form that are greedily eaten bybirds. Summer foliage consists of elliptic to ovate, mid to dark greenleaves, that turn purple-red in autumn. Grows 120-210cm tall with 90-150cmspread.

Garden Use
Cornus alba looks spectacular whenmassed to emphasize and accentuate the cold season red stem color. Greatchoice for shrub borders, as an informal hedge or screen, for foundationplantins, banks and slopes (erosion control), or planted in naturalisticplantings where it can freely spread and form thickets.

PlantingGuide
Cornus alba performs best in full sun to part-shade inorganically rich, medium moisture, well-drained soils. It is not fussyabout soils provided they are kept evenly moist and well-drained. Toleratesmany conditions, including wet, dry and poor soils. While pruning is notrequired, best winter stem colour appears on new growth. For the bestdisplay, cut the stems flush to the ground every 2-3 years in early spring,just as the leaf buds start to swell. This radical pruning, however meansthat you will have a bare spot in the garden for a few weeks and miss thecreamy-white flowers or attractive berries since they only form onsecond-year growth. Alternatively, if severe pruning seems too onerous, onequarter or one third of the oldest stems could be pruned in early spring ofeach year, to stimulate the growth of new stems.