Cornus controversa Green Carpet - Giant Dogwood

The Cornus controversa Green Carpet is a dwarf and slow-growing Pagoda Dogwood, perfect for intimate gardens. Its low and wide silhouette with staggered branches is adorned with glossy, dark green foliage. It beautifully showcases the creamy-white spring flowering, followed by an abundant production of small decorative blue-black fruits. In autumn, its foliage takes on stunning reddish-purple colours before falling off, revealing its beautiful dark brown bark. Easy to grow in moist soil with little limestone, this shrub with an architectural habit deserves its place in the garden.

The Dogwood is part of the relatively unknown Cornaceae family, which, after several revisions of the botanical classification, now only includes the genera Cornus and Alangium. There are several dozen species of Dogwoods, most of which are shrubs, but some like Cornus nuttallii or Cornus kousa form small trees. This is also the case with Cornus controversa, native to China, Korea, and Japan, where it can reach a height of up to 12 metres. It has a straight trunk and vegetation in horizontal tiers, reminiscent of the distinctive architecture of Far Eastern pagodas, from which it gets its common name.
Green Carpet is a horticultural variety with much smaller growth than the species, making it easy to fit even in the smallest gardens. Growing slowly, it will eventually reach a height of 1.2 to 1.5 metres and a width of 1.50 to 2 metres. Keeping the tabular habit of the original botanical species, it grows in tiers of vegetation that give it this highly appreciated architectural aspect. The elliptical leaves, with pointed tips, are quite wide and measure about ten centimetres in length. They have a relatively dark green colour and a slightly glossy surface. This dark and dense foliage forms a superb backdrop for the flowering that occurs in June. Small creamy-white flowers, grouped in cymes of 8 to 10 centimetres in diameter, then develop above the foliage, creating a pleasant scene in the garden. They later evolve into small spherical fruits, first green, then turning blue-black from August onwards, giving the plant a new ornamental interest. Finally, in autumn, its vegetation turns reddish-purple, ending the season on a beautiful note.

This compact Pagoda Dogwood is perfect for small gardens or mixed plantings in flower beds. Its growth is a bit too slow to be planted as a standalone specimen, so it is best suited as a second row plant, behind low-growing plants such as perennials, like the Golden Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis Goldheart), which creates a contrast of shapes and colours with its delicate golden foliage and charming pink heart-shaped flowers. To extend the flowering period of your scene into summer, plant an Astilbe chinensis Vision in red in the foreground, with its beautifully cut bluish-green foliage and red flower plumes that will complement the white of your Dogwood so well. And to dress up the back of your flower bed, the Parrotia persica Persia Spire will be ideal with its foliage that changes colours throughout the season, ending in a fireworks display of warm colours in autumn, and its ornamental bark that pairs well with Green Carpet.