Cornus kousa Watermelon Sugar™ - Flowering Dogwood

Cornus kousa Watermelon Sugar is a magnificent Japanese dogwood, appreciated for its pink, green and white variegated foliage, its large white star-shaped flowers in spring and its decorative red fruit. This original cultivar also charms with its slender habit. This small tree shows its full potential in partially shaded and moist gardens. It fits well in a shrub border or can be planted as a solitary specimen. It offers a refined alternative to classic spring blooms.

Cornus kousa Watermelon Sugar is a large shrub or small tree of the Cornaceae family. This cultivar is a Dutch selection registered under the name ‘Corheesft’, protected by the code PP 35268. It was bred by Mario van Aart and the Van Heesbeen nurseries.
This dogwood has the particularity of displaying tri-coloured foliage after flowering. Its young leaves are variegated with white and shrimp pink. They become green with a white margin, which tints with pink in summer. Then the foliage turns orange-yellow in autumn before falling.
The shrub has a slender and slightly spreading habit, reaching about 6m in height and 4m in spread after ten years. Its growth is relatively slow, developing a supple silhouette with a rounded top. Flowering occurs in May-June, in the form of large inflorescences composed of four pure white star-shaped bracts measuring up to 10cm in diameter. The small and insignificant true flowers are nestled in the centre of these bracts. They are polinated by insects. At the end of summer, the shrub produces bright red spherical fruits, resembling miniature strawberries, 2 to 4cm in diameter, edible, but not very sweet. The foliage is deciduous, composed of simple, ovate, opposite leaves, 8 to 10cm long, slightly crinkled and veined. The young shoots are pale pink in spring, while older wood takes on a grey hue.

Adorned in turn with white flowering, very beautiful variegated foliage and decorative fruits, Cornus kousa Watermelon Sugar establishes itself as a centrepiece in an ornamental garden. It can be planted as a specimen, in the middle of a border or at the edge of a copse. In partial shade, it pairs well with a group of Dryopteris erythrosora ferns, of giant Hosta 'Empresse Wu', enhanced by a border of Heuchera ‘Caramel’. You can also combine it with hydrangeas, for example Hydrangea serrata ‘Bluebird’. It also combines very well with other dogwoods such as Cornus kousa ‘Satomi’, with pink flowering, and the purple foliage of the Japanese maple ‘Bloodgood’.