Why plant Variegated Stellar Pink® Rutgers Dogwood?
We are delighted to be able to offer the amazing Variegated Stellar Pink® Dogwood—a plant unlike any other Dogwood tree you’ll find. Give this sensational ornamental tree a premium location in your landscape where you can watch the show change from season to season. Late spring brings sweet, star-shaped, cotton-candy-pink flowers to your garden. In summer, emerald green leaves with generous margins of white take center stage, and in fall, the green parts of the leaves turn purple, while the white parts turn Day-Glo pink. All this—in one disease-resistant hybrid tree to boot—makes Variegated Stellar Pink® Dogwood a very special tree indeed!
East meets West in the Rutgers Hybrid Dogwoods, thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. Elwin Orton. Plants from opposite sides of the globe were brought together to engineer new trees with built-in disease resistance. To create Stellar Pink®, the only pink-flowering tree of the series, Orton crossed Japanese Kousa Dogwood with a red-blooming American Flowering Dogwood named ‘Sweetwater.’ Fast-forward to the 21st Century, and a nurseryman named Dennie Hill discovers a variegated branch on one of his Stellar Pinks®. The gardening public falls in love with Stellar Pink® all over again!
How to use Variegated Stellar Pink® Rutgers Dogwood in the landscape?
Don't you just love it when nature gives you little gifts? Just like this variegated version of the Stellar Pink® Dogwood! It was discovered as a "mutant" growing off of the original Stellar PInk® - now propagation of this beauty gives you green and white variegated leaves which change to brilliant shades of of pink and red. Quite a lovely specimen for your garden!
Planting Zones
Hardiness Zone: 5-9
How To Plant Variegated Stellar Pink® Rutgers Dogwood
Rutgers Hybrid Dogwoods are more durable than the native Flowering Dogwoods of the Eastern U.S., but they will repay some extra TLC given them. A crumbly soil (not sticky) is ideal, and regular irrigation (but no standing water) will yield the best results. This selection, like many variegated plants, ought to be afforded some afternoon shade in the Southern half of the country, though a good daily dose of morning sun is necessary to coax out the best pink and red leaf-tones when they turn.
How To Water
Water weekly, or better yet, use the Bower & Branch® Water Element to deliver just the right amount of moisture to your tree throughout the growing season.
How To Fertilize
Incorporate Elements Starter Plant food granular form into the soil when planting. If planting in spring or summer, start fertilizing late fall using Elements Starter Plant food granular form on an annual basis each late fall. Continue this for the first three years to get your plant well established.
How To Prune
As your tree grows, you’ll probably want to remove the lowermost branches to show off that amazing jigsaw-puzzle bark! Pruning is best done shortly after the flowers are spent.