Here is another closer photograph.

Sorry, tried to send another picture but it won't go through somehow!

maybe a borer?

I see a dancing bear in the bark pattern. Maybe it was hit by a miniature circus bear. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a circus bear spinning a basketball in his right hand when he hit the tree... or perhaps a dog was chasing a squirrel at an extremely fast rate and the squirrel jerked when he should have juked and face-planted into your dogwood throwing a bur oak acorn out of his right hand as he smacked the trunk.

Other possibilities are borer, drought last year, onerous kids etc

Sorry I could not be better help

John

We have a dogwood like that and surprisingly the bark is starting to grow back!

Looks like normal flaking to me.
Mike

Don't know if dogwoods are susceptible, but looks a lot like 'smooth patch', seen commonly on some of the oaks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Smooth Patch of Oaks

Thank you everyone for your input. Lucky, it really does look very similar to one of the pictures on that website you sent me about Smooth Patch on Oaks, but I can't find anything on smooth patch on dogwoods. I hope this second picture uploads properly. It kind of looks like a running sore. You can see on closer inspection there is a lot of green stuff stuck to it. No borer holes that I can see.

I just want to know what to do with it. This is a very cherished old dogwood, in spring the talk of the neighborhood.

There it is just behind the wheelbarrow, last summer.

And here it is in spring.

The flaking isn't going into the cambium layer. It's natural for older Dogwoods to do that.
Don't worry about it. Take a look at other older dogwoods in your area to see the same.
Mike

Thanks Mike. I hope my pictures of the flaking on my old dogwood help other worried gardeners.

P.S. The Italian cypresses are doing well since I cut off the extra leaders on both trees, they seem to have strengthened up a bit, but I still have the top of the big tree supported for safety's sake.

Patty

My young dogwood was planted about five years ago in my Berkeley Calif. garden. Originally the blooms were light pink and now are all white. I like the pink. Is there any supplement or fertilizer that will help turn it back to pink?