How to Grow Wedding Cake Dogwood (Giant Dogwood)

Cornus controversa

Giant, table, or wedding cake dogwoods command attention in the landscape.

With their layered branches and profuse blossoms, it’s hard to look at anything else, and if you have the variegated type, it’s even more dramatic.

Giant dogwoods grow indigenously in temperate areas of China, Japan, Korea, Nepal, and Vietnam, but they’re cultivated throughout the world.

And so long as you live in the appropriate climate of USDA Hardiness Zones 5 to 9, they’re pretty easygoing.

In spite of one of their common names being “giant,” table dogwoods aren’t necessarily huge, either, topping out at 50 feet tall or less.

In our guide to growing dogwoods, we cover how to cultivate species in the Cornus genus.

Coming right up we’re going to talk all things table, giant, or wedding cake dogwood. Here’s what’s on the agenda:

Table dogwoods are quick growing deciduous trees, so you can enjoy their statuesque, layered display in a relatively short period of time of about 10 years.

What makes them stand out is the tiered growth habit, with the multiple layers of branches inspiring the common names “wedding cake” and “table.”

The leaves are green on top and silver-green on the undersides.

Unlike all other Cornus species except C. alternifolia, the pagoda dogwood, the leaves are alternate rather than paired.

These open up in late spring or early summer, depending on where you live.

The flowers persist for a few weeks and then fade, giving way to fruits that will eventually mature into dark purple or black in the early fall.

In 1890, the famous Veitch Nursery in Exeter, England started advertising the variegated form of the plant. While the species is a stunner, the variegated type is breathtaking.

C. controversa ‘Variegata’ is more common even than the species, and it’s obvious why.

It’s a stunner. The leaves have cream to silver margins and these margins turn to bright yellow in the fall while the rest of the leaf takes on a red hue.

‘Variegata’ is more slow-growing than the species and matures at about 25 feet tall, making it an excellent option for smaller areas.

This cultivar won the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit in 1993.

Ready to include one of these beauties in your landscape? Let’s have a look at their care needs:

How to Grow

To transplant a sapling from the nursery, dig a hole three times as wide and deep as the growing container and work equal parts well-rotted compost into the soil that you removed and put it all back in the hole.

Make a hole in the middle that is just a bit wider than the container the plant is currently growing in. Remove the plant from the container and gently loosen up the roots.

Set the dogwood in the hole and fill in around it with the compost soil mixture. The plant should be sitting at the same height it was in the growing container.

Water the soil and add a bit more if it settles.

Light

Grow giant dogwood in full or partial sun. Those who live in hot climates should definitely provide some afternoon shade, as the trees don’t do well in excessive heat.

The variegated cultivar can be grown in partial shade, which will keep the variegation nice and distinct and encourages the layered formation.

Temperature

Hardy in Zones 5 to 9, wedding cake trees don’t do well in very hot southern climates. They enjoy cool summers like what you can find in the Pacific Northwest.

Soil

The soil needs to be organically-rich and well-draining, and preferably a little bit acidic to neutral with a pH between 5.0 to 7.5.

It can be slightly sandy or slightly clay, but nothing too extreme.

Water

Giant dogwoods like a lot of water, though they can tolerate some drought once established.

Try to keep the soil consistently moist, but you can allow the top few inches of soil to dry out between waterings Aim for the texture of a well-wrung-out sponge.

Mulch regularly to maintain an inch or two of fir bark or well-rotted compost over the root zone but three to six inches away from the trunk.

Mulch will help keep the roots cool and retain the moisture in the soil.

Fertilizing

You shouldn’t need to fertilize an established specimen at all. If your soil is very deficient youcan provide some additional nutrients during the first few years while the tree is young.

I highly encourage you to do a soil test, as that’s the only way to know what your soil is lacking and what you need to amend it with.

Any good soil test will tell you where you soil is deficient and will provide suggestions about how to improve it.

Follow the results of your soil test when you add amendments.

Where to Buy

While not as easy to find as the more common flowering dogwood, you can generally buy saplings at your local garden center or plant nursery.

You may see table dogwoods listed as Swida controversa, as Swida is a synonym for Cornus and is now considered a defunct genus.

Maintenance

Depending on the look you want and whether you want to be able to walk or sit under the table dogwood tree, you might need to prune off the lower branches.

The tree will often grow with branches reaching almost to the ground if left to its own devices.

But some gardeners prefer it to have a more traditional canopy that starts six feet or so above the ground.

Remove the branches at the trunk by cutting at a slight angle. You want the branch collar, which is the swollen area on the underside of the branch where it meets the trunk, to remain in place.

Trees grow to best take advantage of the available light and accommodate any regular winds, it’s best to allow the dogwood to develop naturally.

Pruning should be done in the early spring after the wood has thawed, but if you see diseased, deformed, or broken branches, feel free to prune them anytime.

Propagation

Because these trees can be a little hard to find on the market, lots of gardeners opt to grow theirs from seed or via stem cuttings from an existing tree.

Fortunately, both these propagation methods are reliable. You can also graft these trees, but that’s best left to the experts.

From Seed

In the summer, after the blooms fade, the trees will develop small berries, known as drupes.

When the birds start eating them and they are dark and squishy is usually when they’re ripe enough to harvest.

Pry them open and remove the seeds, then soak in water for 24 hours and rub them on a towel to remove the pulp.

At this point, you can either sow the seeds in the ground or put them in moist sphagnum moss and keep them in the fridge for three months.

Putting them in the fridge mimics the cold stratification that happens naturally over the winter months.

You can amend your soil with lots of well-rotted compost, but it’s not necessary.

If you prefer to start the seeds indoors in spring, keep your seeds in the fridge for three months. While they’re in there, keep the moss moist but not soaking wet.

If you notice any mold forming, dip the seeds in a 20 percent bleach solution and then place them in fresh moss. After three months, remove them from the fridge and soak them for 24 hours in a bowl of water.

Fill six-inch pots with potting mix and place two seeds in the center of each container a half to quarter inch deep.

Place the pots in an area with at least four hours of direct sunlight and keep the potting soil evenly moist.

The seeds don’t need light to germinate but a sunny location provides much needed warmth. It can take up to a month for the seeds to germinate.

When the baby plant is at least six inches tall and the last frost of the year has passed in the spring, harden off the seedling over the course of a week before transplanting.

From Stem Cuttings

Dogwoods are easy to grow from stem cuttings as they root readily.

Wait until the late winter or early spring when the buds are starting to swell but haven’t opened.

1. Cut a six- to 12-inch length of soft, pliable stem. Make your cut just below a leaf node at a 45-degree angle.
2. Fill a clear glass container like a canning jar with about three inches of water. Place the cuttings in the container and set it in a place with lots of bright, indirect light.
3. Change the water every three days.
4. When the cuttings have several inches of roots, you can move them into individual six-inch pots filled with potting mix.
5. Bury the cuttings three or four inches deep and firm the medium up around the stems. Moisten the soil and keep it evenly moist.
6. Place the cuttings in a spot with at least four hours of direct sunlight, either indoors or out if the weather permits.

When the leaves emerge and fully open, you can harden off the cuttings if you were growing them inside before transplanting.

Managing Pests and Disease

Provided that you grow your tree in an appropriate spot and give it the conditions it prefers, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever have any issues with pests or disease.

Stressed plants are susceptible to the following:

Insects

There are numerous pests that trouble dogwoods, but for the most part, if your tree is healthy an infestation won’t necessarily spell disaster. That’s especially true if you catch the issue early on.

This causes yellowing leaves and stunted growth. Our guide to controlling scale has more information.

There are also multiple kinds of borers that favor dogwoods. Dogwood borers, the larvae of Synanthedon scitula, burrow into the wood and feed. This causes leaf drop and twig death.

Dogwood twig borers (Oberea tripunctata) feed on young twigs, causing tip death and leaf drop.

Flatheaded appletree borers (Chrysobothris femorata) chew through the bark and cambium layer, girdling the tree and causing tissue die off anywhere they feed.

Learn all about dogwood pests and how to manage them here.

Disease

Wedding cake dogwoods are resistant to twig blight, which is a problem for many Cornus species.

There are two types of anthracnose that trouble many dogwoods. These are discula and spot anthracnose, caused by the fungus Discula destructiva and Elsinoe corni respectively.

Finally, there’s powdery mildew. Similar to the powdery mildew that attacks your cucurbits during the summer, it causes a powdery coating on the leaves.

It is caused by the fungi Erysiphe pulchra or Phyllactinia guttata.

Learn about all these and how to deal with them in our guide to dogwood diseases.

A Giant Wedding Cake

Table dogwoods are stately beauties that command attention, but they don’t demand a lot of maintenance in return.

They’re pretty easy to care for but their tiered growth habit looks like something you’d need to spend hours pruning!

Are you growing table dogwood? Do you have the variegated variety or the species plant? Let us know in the comments section below!

And if you’d like to read more about the Cornus genus, why not add these guides to your reading list next: