Red Twig, Blue Pot

Silver blue lavenders in a turquoise pot seemed like a good idea, evergreen for winter and something to look at out on the deck, but they are too blah, too gray and too uninteresting to be a focal point in winter.

The pot wants something more, and I think I have a plan for it. How cool would it be to pot up a redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea) and have bright red twigs in a bright blue container to look at on the deck in winter? To go with my red chairs. Too much?

Cornus sericea is a woody shrub, with upright stems that are bright red. That's its big attraction -- spectacular winter interest -- but it's a nice leafy green plant in summer and it has subtle white flowers in spring too.

I grew a big stand of redtwig dogwoods (the variety was 'Isanti') in Connecticut right by our front door.

They were spectacular all winter long but looked their best after a snowfall. Looking out from our front door in January, this is what they looked like against a fat spruce tree:

Clearly these can be big plants. I'll need to get a dwarf variety like 'Arctic Fire' and keep it pruned if I want to grow it in a pot.

Keeping even a dwarf redtwig pruned will be a bit of work each year, but the reddest color develops on new growth, so pruning is needed for the best show. I pruned the big stand every year in my old garden, usually cutting off one third of the oldest, browner stems, but one year I chopped them all down to the ground. They regrew lustily in one season. This is a very forgiving plant.

It was quite a job to wrestle with all the woody growth each year to trim it. In a pot on the deck it should be easier.

Redtwig dogwoods are used in landscapes around here, but they do want water. They are even flood tolerant, so I see them used near arroyos and retention ditches. They do surprisingly well in our climate of contrasts, in flood and drought.

In a container with the hose nearby, this should be easy to keep well watered.

Cornus sericea is a suckering shrub that spreads out and takes over. In a pot that won't happen. I wonder, though, if it will do well in a container, constrained from its natural desire to send roots out in all directions to gain ground. My internet research says you can grow them in containers just fine, but you can find validation for anything you want on the internet.

Here's a picture of a whole bunch in containers that I found. I'd have just the one in its sky blue container, but this is the idea:

Gardening is a series of experiments, and I'm up for experimenting with a redtwig dogwood in a blue container on my deck. I'm dying for some color out there right now.