Yum! Cornus Amomum!

No, I'm not snacking on it, but something is. This is the second year in a row the silky dogwood has been completed defoliated. The defoliation doesn't seem to bother the shrub in the least, and it's at the back of a mixed shrub border so you don't see it unless you're looking for it. I never catch the critter and I don't really care that it's eating well, but I'm curious about what it is. Nothing else in the vicinity is being eaten.

I love a good mystery. Beats me what's chowing down on that one shrub exclusively for the second year in a row. The deer went for my C. alternifolia this year but they seem to get anything sticking out of the tops of tubes in the local vicinity while passing through. The deer haven't been all that discriminating based on my experiences. My Pagoda Dogwoods weren't completely defoliated because they were saplings and enough leaves were still left in the tubes. Come to think of it, the deer don't eat the Japanese Barberry. Those volunteers are always left unscathed. Lucky me. Lots of birds eat the berries in fall. If I don't protect newer plantings by tubing them, rabbits will go for the bark and actually deer will too in the winter. Seems to me as if the only critters that eat the leaves of my Silky, Pagoda, and Red Twig Dogwood are the deer. Maybe you have a deer that has developed a taste for Silky Dogwood preferring it over others? If this happened to you two years in a row at about the same time, any chance you could train a video on that area next year? They've really came down in price and there are low illumination models as well as motion activated set ups.

Google for dogwood sawfly (Macremphytus).

Guy S.

PS: The yums around here right now are Cornus officinalis and C. mas, both of which have ripened their edible fruits!

Guy S.

Ah! That's it. Definately dogwood sawfly. Learn something new every day.

The elderberries are ripe here right now, and I'm keeping my eye on the various viburnum drupes -- although it's hard to beat the catbirds and cardinals to them.

Which do you like best, Guy, Cornus mas or Cornus officinalis? Culinarily and aesthetically.

Scott

Oh oh oh! Dogwood Sawfly! Something I don't have around here evidently!

I'm no culinary kinda-sewer! They taste alike to me, like sour cherries. I think maybe I like the less formal habit of our C. officinalis better than the more rigid, upright form of our C. mas, but both have their place and make beautiful small trees. Here's the C. officinalis blooming though the snow late last winter: