Hi. What is this plant? I need to know how to prune it without it becoming too woody and large. Photos are attached, the one of the leaves is the only one I have but the quality is bad. You have to zoom in to see the leaves. I hope this is enough. This has recently been cut as seen in photos. The plant has woody base with long tall woody red stems/shoots and leaves as in photo.
Replies appreciated.
Thanks.
maybe Cornus sericea (red twig dogwood)
Thanks, searching for Cornus sericea (red twig dogwood) looks to be the correct ID.
My scenario is I rent a property and am responsible for trimming the bushes but this dogwood is a little different. I have to move out in the next month and if the owners dont trim this correctly before next summer, the remaining 12 inch sticks I've left will become like the brown base, too woody and the whole thing will be too big for the garden and the whole plant would have to be potentially removed which is not ideal.
So, a further question. How far/much of the red shoots can I safely remove without killing the whole plant? I don't want to leave too much so it becomes more of the base brown wood material next season and do not want to kill the whole plant by taking too much red shoot off. ???
Replies appreciated again.
Thanks.
This message was edited Nov 21, 2022 3:49 AM
I moved this thread to 'Ask-a-Dave's Gardner'
I would google how to trim this bush.
In my own experience with this bush is you can trim it to a few inches to the ground, new shoots will grow next spring. I had this bush and I finally dug it out, because it got huge!
END RESULT ...
Thanks all for identifying this plant I think it must be a Red Twig Dogwood. I have now looked into how to prune it and the result is as follows in the photos... I just cut them all back to where they had been cut before and hopefully they will re-shoot next spring.
Thanks again.
This message was edited Nov 30, 2022 1:23 PM
