Dogwoods: The Best Bird-friendly Shrubs and Small Trees You Can Plant

Dogwoods are woody shrubs and small trees that are important components to a healthy landscape. Particular dogwood species can be found in habitats from wetlands to moist woodlands and even on the edges of dry prairies. Their foliage is the host of many species of caterpillars – in David Wagner’s Book Caterpillars of Eastern North America, they actually host more species than any other group besides oaks. Dogwood flowers are also nectar and pollen rich and the fruits universally high in fats and relished by songbirds. Most time their ripening fruit to fall migration which helps fuel many a songbird on its travels.

Pagoda Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia – most of our dogwoods now in the Genus Swida)

Locally native in rich, mesic woodlands associated with rock outcrops and valleys that ensure good drainage. A small, multi-trunked understory tree (15-20 ft.) that usually does best with high shade or morning sun – it can scorch in hot afternoon sun and in droughty (sandy/gravelly) sites. It is called pagoda dogwood because it grows tiers of new growth and the older tiers splay out in pleasing horizontal layers. Flowers are creamy white and in clusters that form in late spring atop these layers of branches and are visited by many pollinators (host of Summer Azure butterflies whose caterpillars eat the flower buds and developing fruits). Fruits ripen from green to dark bluish-black in late July to early August and are quickly devoured by birds – one of the BEST bird feeders you can have! Fall color can range from yellow to burgundy – the deeper colors with more sun/light. Easy to transplant with fibrous roots – I have better success with bareroot or from small container grown plants.  Climate resilient as trees grow wild well to our south.

Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum)

Locally native in wetlands from open prairie swales to woodland sloughs.  A large shrub 8 to 12 feet tall tolerating full sun or part sun, becoming weak and open in too much shade. It does thrive along wetland edges of woodlands where it gets more sunlight. Stems can be reddish with brown vertical striations, never as colorful as Red-twig Dogwood. Flowers are creamy white and in clusters that cloak the shrub in late spring (flowers and developing fruits are host to Summer Azures). Fruits ripen from sage to a porcelain blue to dark blue when fully ripe – and are quickly devoured by wildlife or drop off the plant. Fall color is usually a rich burgundy but can be more yellow with more shade. This shrub is easy to transplant and prefers average to wet soils, thriving in poorly drained sites where other shrubs might be challenging. Climate resilient, this shrub is native into the deep South and very heat resistant.

Rough-leaf Dogwood (Cornus drummondii)

Locally native, this shrub became widespread in the area only recently. It’s a thicket-forming shrub or small tree (15-20 ft.) with creamy white flowers in early summer that are visited by many pollinators including butterflies (their scent is not pleasant). Fruits ripen from green to white and the pedicels (stems) of the fruit also turn red as the fruit ripens – the white fruit with a black “eye” (where the flower pistil was) are set on red stems is quite striking. Foliage has a raspy “rough” surface which gives the plant its name. It is mixed up in the nursery trade with Gray Dogwood but it becomes a larger plant, blooms and fruits later. Fall color is usually pretty late in red tones. This shrub is very climate resilient and its range has been spreading north all on its own (dispersed by birds!).

Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa)

This shrub is sister species to Rough-leaf Dogwood and is widespread locally. It’s also a thicket-forming shrub (8-12 ft.) but never develops a stout trunk like Rough-leaf dogwood. Flowers are creamy white in late spring (before Rough-leaf dogwood) and the flowers are in a panicle cluster shaped more pyramidal rather than a flat dome on Rough-leaf Dogwood. Fruits also ripen from green to white and the pedicels of the fruit turn red as the fruit ripens. The in-between stage of sage green fruit on pinkish stems is quite pretty. The foliage is smooth on top and turns burgundy red to purple in the fall. This shrub is more of a northern species but heat and drought tolerant once established.

Round-leaved Dogwood (Cornus rugosa)

This shrub is somewhat of a relict species and found locally only on specific, cooler limestone outcrops in wooded areas. This shrub is sort of shrub and sort of tree but does spread into a multi-stemmed grove (10-15 ft). The stems are subtly orangish/pinkish but not remotely as colorful as Red-twig or Silky Dogwoods. Flowers form in late spring and are creamy white on dome shaped clusters followed by exquisite fruit that can be sky or baby boy blue on pink stems. Fruits are quickly eaten by wildlife or drop from the plant. Fall color can be creamy yellow to pinkish and red tones. This shrub needs the right site to grow, good drainage, afternoon shade and a cool site to thrive. It has a more northerly range in the wild.

Red-twig or Red-osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea)

This popular ornamental is native locally to some of our special wetlands like the oxbows at Deer Run Forest Preserve or the sedge meadows of Lost Flora Fen at Raccoon Creek. It is a premier wildlife shrub (6-10 ft.) blooming in late spring with globular clusters of creamy white flowers that produce white clusters of berries that are quickly consumed by songbirds. It has a tendency to have a second round of flowering in midsummer and often a tertiary round of flowers so produces a lot of pollen and nectar as well as fat rich food for Nature over an extended period. The young stems are red with lighter whitish/brown speckles, more red than Silky Dogwood. There are orange and yellow-stemmed cultivar selections of the species. This shrub is best in moist to wet soils. It does not like heat and drought, becoming susceptible to various maladies including stem cankers when under stress. It is mainly a northern plant that thrives in cool summer climates.

Regionally native:

Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida – now Benthamidia florida)

Native as close as the southern end of Lake Michigan and along the Mississippi River south of Quincy. It has naturalized near plantings and gradually spreading farther north, including Klehm Arboretum. A small understory tree (20-30 ft.) that prefers high shade or the edge of a woods, Flowering dogwood can grow out in full sun with the right soils or where its roots can penetrate deep in sand or in cracks between bedrock. This tree does not thrive in heavy prairie soils or soils graded for development and needs well drained, woodland soils. (Absent from the grand prairie of Illinois). Hardiness was borderline but trees grown from native western Illinois/Missouri sources show full hardiness. Southern sourced plants are not reliable bloomers but there are pink-bracted strains that are quite hardy.  Flowering dogwood usually grows in tiers of horizontal layered branching in shady sites but can be denser in full sun. Tiny yellowish flowers appear before the leaves and have a whorl of 4 showy white bracts around the knob-like flower cluster that make them look like butterflies floating atop the twigs. Spring Azure butterflies caterpillars eat the flower buds and developing fruits. Fruits ripen red in early fall as a striking contrast to the green leaves and are relished by a diversity of songbirds. Fall color starts with purplish tinged leaves in September and lasts through October as leaves become vibrant red, often not dropping until the end of October or November. Flowering dogwoods have deep coarse roots and are not so easy to transplant – balled and burlapped trees move the best. Deep container grown plants are next best but make sure there is good contact between the roots and the new soil. There is certainly a fungal relationship needed by the roots. Climate resilient, especially trees from our southwest which take heat and drought spells well. The tree grows on hot, rocky glades in Missouri, often in full sun. Dogwood anthracnose was a disease of unknown origin that killed many trees in parts of Illinois (and especially the East Coast) but is now in remission for unknown reasons.

Non-native Dogwoods:

Kousa Dogwood (Cornus kousa – now Benthamidia japonica)

This species does not host the caterpillars that the American native flowering dogwood does, and the fruits are not rich in fat for songbird migration. They are high in sugar and do get eaten (monkeys including Japanese macaques/snow monkeys in the wild), mainly by mammals and are edible to humans too. I saw a fall migrant Tennessee Warbler piercing the fruit and slurping the sweet, juicy flesh in my backyard and have read other observers’ description of this use by native birds.

Cornelian-cherry Dogwood (Cornus mas) and Japanese Cornel Dogwood (Cornus officinalis) are very similar species with early spring tufts of yellow flowers that can be a nectar source to early pollinators in our increasingly variable spring weather — the Japanese species blooms earliest. Both produce cherry sized fruits that are edible but extremely tart and sometimes not palatable. There is no documented use of the foliage by caterpillars that use the native dogwoods.

Asian Red-twig Dogwood (Cornus alba) is virtually identical to our native Red-twigged Dogwood with no differences in wildlife use observed.

Blood-twig Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is usually grown as the cultivar Winter Flame with red to orange and yellow winter stems. I have seen no data documenting the use of this plant by native wildlife.