Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
kendravicknair

Can I save this dogwood?

kendravicknair
9 years ago

We are building a house and asked our builder to leave this dogwood tree when they were clearing the building site. We knew it was risky, but hoped for the best. It has been 5 months since they cleared around the tree and so far it is not doing well. Most of the left half of the tree did not leaf out this spring. Branches are dying on both sides. Looking at it, I would guess it is probably not going to recover. However, at our previous home we cut down a much smaller dogwood that we thought was dead and it grew back tougher than ever from the stump. Does anybody think it would be possible to prune this tree enough to get it to bounce back? Or does it just need to be removed?

Comments (8)

  • krnuttle
    9 years ago

    In zone 7 it is my experience that dogwoods are nearly a weed tree as far as growing habits. The native trees are difficult to kill. I have seen fallen dogwood trees with dozen of sprouts coming up from the fallen truck.

    SO I would let it alone and see what it will do. Since the root system has been disturbed it may die back, but will come back strong in a year or two.

  • ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
    9 years ago

    probably not...

    heavy machine compaction of the soil .. and grading.. have probably destroyed the roots on some level .. but you will never know.. since you cant see them ....

    if this were out back on my 5 acres.. i would enjoy watching whatever happens ..

    in front of your new castle... get rid of it ... have the driveway guys chain it out of there.. when they pave the driveway ...

    and.. when you go to landscape ... go smallish ... huge transplants can end up having huge problems... when you get to that point in the process... come talk to us.. in a new post ... especially if you are doing it yourself ...

    ken

  • brandon7 TN_zone7
    9 years ago

    I have to agree with Ken. The root system has undoubtedly been tortured. It could possibly overcome the extreme abuse it's suffered, but is more likely to continue to decline. Put the thing out of its misery and start over.

    This was NOT how to save an existing tree!

  • kendravicknair
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I talked with an arborist today and he said the same thing. Not much hope for the tree. Not sure what we could have done differently though. Hard to build a house without heavy machinery. We picked the least densely wooded part of the property for the house.

  • brandon7 TN_zone7
    9 years ago

    It's a beautiful house and deserves a super landscape job!

    If you were doing it over and wanting to save the tree, you'd need to completely block off all access in an area AT LEAST as big as the tree's dripline. Twice to three times that diameter would be ideal.

  • Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
    9 years ago

    New construction is rough on trees. The way they do it in the suburbs it is even hard on trees planted after folks move in. Too much soil compaction plus they sell off the top soil which is removed during the leveling process. Seems to take five to ten years for the dirt to resemble normal. Consider at my sixty year old house the grass just grows. My buddies with new houses have to buy fertilizer!

    The dogwood's whole landscape changed so it is in shock. I'd leave it until your driveway is poured and all. Are ya putting in the landscaping this fall? Even if you are and the dogwood is leafless it will fit in during the fall. Then next spring if it does not leaf out put in a replacement asap while it is still planting season.

  • kendravicknair
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    We will begin the landscaping this fall, except for the sod which is going in next week. Driveway is going in today. They are leaving as much space as they can around the tree, but it is only going to be about 5 feet. I really like the tree there and I know that if we planted another dogwood, I would never see it get to be that size. We have had very little success with dogwoods, whether growing naturally or purchased from a nursery. We planted 8 of them at our previous house and only 2 survived. Neither of the survivors ever flowered or even grew noticeably in the 8 years we lived there. So now I'm trying to think of something different to plant as a specimen. Something that will stay smallish, but with multi-season interest. A Natchez crape myrtle really fits the bill, but they are grossly overused in our area. Would love a stewartia or paperbark maple, but those are slow growing and hard to find. Now leaning toward serviceberry. Can't wait to get in the house and really get to know the property so we can start planting!

    Our last house was in a neighborhood where they attempted to leave as many trees as possible (at the time we thought that was a good thing), but they were all 60-80ft tall hickory and tulip poplar with leaves and branches only at the top. We watched tree after tree die and come down in storms. One of ours fell and just missed our house, thankfully only clipping the gutter. This house is on 5 acres and we tried to clear everything that was in danger from the construction, except for this one dogwood :(

  • dbarron
    9 years ago

    At extreme risk of not being a naturalist (which I am), I've always been pleased with the Japanese dogwood, cornus kousa.

    It just seems tougher and certainly grows fasters and more lush and more prolifically flowering.

    I love our native, cornus florida, but I think kousa is what it should have been sometimes (lol)

Sponsored
EA Home Design
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars69 Reviews
Loudoun County's Trusted Kitchen & Bath Designers | Best of Houzz