Common dogwood

Family

Cornaceae

Habit

Shrub

Height

3 m

Spread

3.5 m

Growth

medium

Lifespan

50 years

First yield

after 4 years

Hardiness

zone 5–7

Shade tolerance

partial shade

Soil

Sand, Silt, Loam, Clay

Soil moisture

semi-dry – very wet

pH

5.6 – 7.6

Synonyms

Swida sanguinea. Thelycrania sanguinea.

Edible: The fruit of common dogwood is not food for people. The black drupes, about eight millimetres across, taste markedly bitter, and larger quantities bring on nausea and vomiting — unlike its relative the cornelian cherry, it is not worth a kitchen experiment. What matters instead is the oil: the seeds hold forty to forty-five per cent fixed oil, formerly pressed and used above all for lamps and soap-making; refined it is edible, but it plays no part in cooking today. For the garden that means this shrub stands not as a fruit plant but as a bird-food plant — leave the crop to the thrushes.

Medicinal: The fruit is used in medicine similarly to Cornus officinalis (true cornelian cherry). This includes: Shan Zhu Yu has been used in Chinese herbal medicine for at least 2000 years. It is a stabilising and binding herb mainly used to relieve heavy menstrual bleeding and unusually active body fluids such as heavy sweating, increased urination, spermatorrhoea and premature ejaculation. Like all herbs that inhibit the discharge of body fluids (including excessive ones), it prolongs or worsens symptoms if used without strengthening or detoxifying herbs. It is therefore commonly used in combination with herbs such as Rehmannia glutinosa (gluten herb) and is part of the 'Eight-Ingredient Pill' used in China to strengthen the yang of the loins. The fruit is antibacterial, antifungal, blood-pressure-lowering, tumour-inhibiting, astringent, diuretic, liver-strengthening and tonic. The fruit is used without the kernel as a decoction to treat arthritis, fever and a variety of other complaints. It is used for senile cold, diabetes, cystitis, tinnitus etc. The fruit is antibacterial and inhibits the growth of Bacillus dysenteriae and staphylococci. It is harvested fully ripe and dried for later use. The stem bark is astringent, antimalarial and tonic. The plant is antibacterial, diuretic, blood-pressure-lowering and a urinary-tract disinfectant.

Other uses: The seed contains 45% of a non-drying oil and is used for soap-making and lighting purposes. A non-drying oil is also obtained from the fruit peel (pericarp), which is likewise used for lighting purposes. The fruit peel contains 19–35% oil. A greenish-blue dye is obtained from the fruit. The young stems are very flexible and are used for basketry. The wood is tough and hard. It is used for small items such as tool handles, turnery etc. High-quality charcoal can be produced from the wood; it is also excellent as fuel.

This easy-care plant thrives on all moderately to well-fertile soils, from acid to shallow chalky. It also grows well in heavy clay soils. The plants are relatively shade-tolerant but prefer dense shade. Strong, cold winds harm them. The plants are hardy to about -25°C. The flowers smell rather unpleasant to most people but are attractive to insects. The plants produce runners and can rapidly form dense thickets. Regular pruning is possible, and the plants produce long, straight shoots after pruning. Plants of this genus are particularly resistant to honey fungus.

Common dogwood propagates by almost any route, and does so unaided. Cuttings are quickest: semi-ripe shoots in June and July, or hardwood cuttings of ripened wood about twenty centimetres long in late autumn, struck straight into open ground — the strike rate is high and rooting hormone unnecessary. Arching shoots lay themselves down and root where they touch; such layers can be severed the following year. The freely produced root suckers likewise give ready young plants, lifted with a spade in winter. Seed is the slowest route: the stones need cold to germinate and, once cleaned of pulp, often come up only in the second spring, after two winters outdoors.

Common dogwood is one of the load-bearing species of the native hedge. Around seven wild bee species work its open disc flowers in May and June, along with twelve hoverfly species and numerous flies and beetles — the flat flower form puts the nectar within reach of short-tongued insects, even though nectar is only moderate and pollen scarce. Seventeen butterfly and moth species use it as caterpillar food, one of them exclusively. The greatest weight, though, lies in the fruit: twenty-four bird species eat the black drupes, among them song thrush, blackbird, fieldfare, robin and starling, which disperse the seed as they go. The dense, many-stemmed framework is readily taken as a nesting site and perch, and the root suckers close the base of the hedge enough to give small mammals lasting cover.

Special characteristics: shoots blood-red in winter (anthocyanin) winter interest, colour strong only in full sun hard pruning renews young coloured wood; root suckers+self-layering arching shoots forms thickets, keep away from bed edges; brilliant red autumn colour; seed 40-45% oil formerly lamp oil+soap; wood very hard (turning, basketry, tool handles); fruit bitter and inedible for people;

Europe to Central Asia. Common dogwood occupies almost all of Europe apart from the far north and reaches through Asiatic Turkey and the Caucasus into Central Asia. In Central Europe it is among the commonest shrubs of all, growing in field hedges, on woodland margins, in scrub fringes and on meadows turning to scrub, with a clear preference for calcareous ground. From the lowlands it climbs to about 900 metres in the Bavarian Alps and around 1,550 metres in the Valais. It is native to Germany, Austria and Switzerland and one of the building blocks of the Central European hedge landscape.

Common dogwood is the indicator shrub of Central European scrub fringes: it grows in field hedges, on woodland mantles and margins, in scrubbing-over dry grassland, on banks and in open floodplain and slope woodland. Its centre lies on calcareous, base-rich loam and clay in warmer districts, but it tolerates moderately acid and seasonally wet ground too, growing in flooded alluvial woods as readily as on dry limestone slopes. It endures part shade but flowers and fruits freely only in sun. Through root suckers it forms broad, dense fringes that fill the transition between woodland and open land — precisely the structure most often missing from the farmed landscape.