The straight species kousa will bloom heavier (more flowers) than will Venus but the flowers on Venus are huge!! As much as 6 inches across. Both are stunning in bloom but Venus is a bit jaw dropping.

I'm considering Venus for my new container garden myself.

Any idea how deer resistant Venus is?

When young and deer can easily reach young growth, they're both equally tempting, especially in winter and very early spring..

Flowers from 'Venus' are too big. When it is rainy weather the individual flowerbracts get stuck to one another. It flowers a few weeks before normal Cornus kousa. I have both in the garden and prefer normal Cornus kousa.

I used to work in a garden which had a gorgeous c.nuttallii - 'Eddie's White Wonder'...which was just stunning. The mention of growing a cornus (any cornus) in a container has put me into a demented state of plantlust. I dare not shoehorn another large woody into my allotment and there isn't a single inch of space at home...but in a container?

RP, it can be done :-)) I wouldn't try with Eddies' White Wonder as that just gets too darn big but Venus is much smaller......smaller even than most kousas. We get plenty of rain here in mid to late spring but I have never encountered the "sticking" flower bracts previously mentioned.

ALL of my new garden is containerized. Not only does this tend to keep woodies dwarfed but the need for periodic root pruning and soil replacement will also keep size in check. And has no negative impact on flowering.

I grow lots of different trees in containers. 🤗

Mine too, GG (containerised). I have 2 raised beds - essentially large containers as they were built on builder's aggregate - and (many) terracotta pots. Of every size - some glazed, some not. I have a ceonothus ('Concha'), 2 acers (Garnet and Sango-Kaku), indigofera, citrus, aloysia and lilac so I know, with the right potting medium, you can definitely grow pretty much anything in a container.

Lot of effort though.

OTOH, the flexibility and aesthetic freedom is stupendous.

I never use dogwood trees in designs, but I make an exception for Venus. You really can't go wrong with it, unless you hate giant flowers!

Thanks, all. I'll put it on the list for consideration.

Cornus 'Venus'. in flower at the moment

^^ Wow!!

Wow is right! Those flowers are gorgeous!

I'm thinking of a white dogwood for a spot and have been wavering between kousa and florida - not really a fan of kousas but they seem to be fuller and hardier and heartier than the floridas.

I recently came across Venus and was a bit starstruck, not gonna lie!

But Marie's suggestion has me rethinking kousas too - I kind of prefer pink but the pink florida dogwoods around here are a bit garish. That Satomi is lovely.

I DO have room for two, or even three....

Does your reaction to the Venus above mean you've made your decision, mxk? :)

Dee

" Does your reaction to the Venus above mean you've made your decision, mxk? "

I ended up buying a "Summer Fun" variegated dogwood -- who cares that you can't see the flowers with foliage like that! :0)

I did go back to get one more regular kousa, but the B&B'd I had decided to buy had sold by the time I went back. There's a couple other places I may check, but if I can't find a nicely branched, full one then I'll wait until next year to add to this grouping. Of course, Venus is still a contender, maybe I'll stumble on a nicely shaped one while I'm out there looking next week -- the ones I saw in the nursery were in bloom and beautiful, but the branching structure of these specimens wasn't great. If I don't find something next week I'm just going to hold off to add the 3rd one until next spring -- I'm not going to keep traipsing around looking for one tree, and peak spring planting season window is closing.

how big will a Venus get? I'm zone 5 and just ordered one for next spring...

Not as large as it would in a milder zone :-) In fact, I might have concerns about it in zone 5. The nuttalii aspect of its parentage is less cold hardy than most other flowering dogwoods, to the extent that most sources put Venus's lower hardiness limit to zone 6.

Here, under optimum growing conditions, the mature size could be as much as 25'x25'.

they sell them here... i wihs they wouldnt sell palnts and trees that aren't suitable for our region..

maybe I should go with the straight species?

I love the kousa dogwoods in all seasons. I hate my venus. Thinking of cutting it down because after it blooms it looks horrible - coarse foliage, ery irregular branching, waay too wide. Those giant blooms that impressed me so much now just look vulgar. I think the hybrid venus needs full sun which i don’t have. In my understory, the kousa is better.

The picture that Dutch posted looks more like Starlight, another Rutgers hybrid which is columnar. venus gets 25’ wide.

My experience is completely opposite from the above. I have been using Venus in client designs for a number of years now and other than larger flower bracts and slightly later blooming than Starlight, they are virtally identical in size, shape and appearance. They share the exact same parentage. Venus also does NOT require full sun!