Plant Guide
Summer Gold Chinese Dogwood
Cornus kousa 'Summer Gold'
Height: 10 feet
Spread: 5 feet
Sunlight:
Hardiness Zone: 4b
Other Names: Kousa Dogwood
Description:
Exquisite, uncrinkled bright green foliage, with golden edges and pink highlights in summer; flaming red fall color; distinctly upright with dense branching; in mid to late spring lovely white bracts appear and last for several weeks
Ornamental Features
Summer Gold Chinese Dogwood features showy clusters of white flowers with white bracts held atop the branches from mid to late spring. It has attractive gold-variegated green foliage with hints of pink. The pointy leaves are highly ornamental and turn an outstanding crimson in the fall. The peeling gray bark adds an interesting dimension to the landscape.
Landscape Attributes
Summer Gold Chinese Dogwood is a multi-stemmed deciduous shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.
This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It is a good choice for attracting birds to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.
Summer Gold Chinese Dogwood is recommended for the following landscape applications;
- Accent
- General Garden Use
Planting & Growing
Summer Gold Chinese Dogwood will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 5 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 40 years or more.
This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is very fussy about its soil conditions and must have rich, acidic soils to ensure success, and is subject to chlorosis (yellowing) of the foliage in alkaline soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution, and will benefit from being planted in a relatively sheltered location. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.
