Nothing from Wayside is cheap.

I have a Cornus kousa 'Satomi' that I bought locally and it's doing wonderful. I like the kousas for their hardiness and disease resistence, you may want to look into them. JBs aren't a problems because the fruit ripened after the JBs were done. I wouldn't use the pesticide until you know you need it.

tj

We are in a JB quarantine county in Ohio, and I have never had a problem with them on any of my dogwoods, especially the kousa. Certainly not enough to use a systemic pesticide as a prophylaxis.

Look for them locally :-) You'll get larger, better developed trees for the same price and no shipping costs. These are not uncommon trees and a variety of the Rutgers hybrids (the 'Aurora' or 'Stellar Pink') as well as an assortment of red/pink flowering kousas should be available at local nurseries and garden centers as soon as they open in spring. Both the hybrids and the kousas are about equal in disease resistance.

Japanese beetles are not an issue on the west coast, so I'll let others comment on that topic.

Have you read the customer reviews of Wayside Gardens? This place is bad news. They have a pretty catalog, but that's it. With all the myriad of reputable sources out there, I don't know why anyone would buy from a place with a reputation like this place has.

Here is a link that might be useful: The scoop on 'Wayside Gardens'

WOW! I had no idea about how bad their service is. It's a shame because they have such a nice catalog and plants I can't seem to locate anywhere else. Thanks for letting me know about this.

Dogwoods are great as long as the growing conditions are good. The other option for dramitic spring color would be magnolias. There are some great new varietes that bloom a little later and may be less prone to frost damage. If you want pink flowers check out 'Daybreak', 'Rose Marie' and 'Coral Lake'. There are also a lot of newer Yellow magnolias that bloom late.

If you are going to plant several trees you could mix in dogwwods, magnolias and redbuds.

David

If your conditions are suitable for dogwoods, then those are good choices. The Stellar Pink is a hybrid between Cornus florida (the native flowering dogwood) and Cornus kousa (Asian Dogwood), and has many of the best characteristics of both. It flowers a an intermediate time of the two, and is reputed to be very disease resistant. I don't remember about the Aurora off the top of my head, so I'm not going to make a statement on it.

As far as JB go, they are rampant in my area, and I am happy to report they they seemed to ignore out dogwoods. So please pass on the systemic insecticide, as you are unlikely to need it. In addition using these systemic insecticides on a flowering plant WILL KILL pollinators coming to that plant. It passes into the pollen, and probable the nectar. In addition, it could be carried back to a hie, and contaminate the honey as well. I please do not use a systemic insecticide on a insect pollinated plant.

If your conditions are suitable for dogwoods, then those are good choices. The Stellar Pink is a hybrid between Cornus florida (the native flowering dogwood) and Cornus kousa (Asian Dogwood), and has many of the best characteristics of both. It flowers a an intermediate time of the two, and is reputed to be very disease resistant. I don't remember about the Aurora off the top of my head, so I'm not going to make a statement on it.

As far as JB go, they are rampant in my area, and I am happy to report they they seemed to ignore out dogwoods. So please pass on the systemic insecticide, as you are unlikely to need it. In addition using these systemic insecticides on a flowering plant WILL KILL pollinators coming to that plant. It passes into the pollen, and probable the nectar. In addition, it could be carried back to a hie, and contaminate the honey as well. I please do not use a systemic insecticide on a insect pollinated plant.

This is all good information and appreciate it. I especially like the idea of mixing magnolias and dogwoods.

I will hold off on the systemic pesticide on the dogwoods to see what happens. There are some purple plums that get destroyed if I don't treat them but they flower way before the JBs show up. I figure I can let them flower and then give them a shot of the systemic. My big concern is my Koelreuteria trees as I am afraid they may be in flower when the JBs are at their worst.

I'm now inspired to plant a whole bunch of different dogwoods and see what happens.

Rolf