Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Guide to Native Plants of Georgia for Wildlife < Cornus amomum

If you plant a silky dogwood, don’t expect to see the same sort of big white showy bracts you’d get with flowering dogwood (Cornus florida). Instead, you can look forward to a bloom that is much more delicate and understated. The individual flowers are tiny, each with a rosy center and four dainty, creamy petals, and they are carried in airy, flat-topped clusters that measure about 2" across. Appearing in May and June, the light, lacy blooms may never be overwhelming, but they are always subtly and refreshingly pretty.

The flowers are followed by clusters of blue or blue-and-cream-spotted, berry-like drupes, which ripen in August and September and are really quite interesting and ornamental while they last. That isn’t very long, though, because the birds are crazy about them. Bluebirds, cardinals, blue jays, robins, red-headed woodpeckers, evening grosbeaks, mockingbirds, summer tanagers, brown thrashers, gray-cheeked thrushes, and cedar waxwings are among this popular fruit’s biggest fans.

Silky dogwood is a wetland species and is most at home on a stream bank or swamp’s edge in partial shade. Massed along a stream, creek, or pond, it makes a beautiful and useful addition to the wildlife garden. Transplanting is easy, and poorly drained, heavy clay soils are not a problem.

Family:  Cornaceae (Dogwood Family)

Description: Large deciduous shrub with 2 to 4" elliptical leaves. Flat-topped clusters of small cream-colored flowers appear in May and June. ¼", blue, berry-like drupes mature in August and September. Leaves are often plum-colored in fall.

Size: 6 to 10’ tall and wide.

Habit: Coarse, spreading, multi-stemmed shrub with a rounded form in youth. Becomes straggly in old age.

Growth Rate: Moderate.

Light: Full sun to part shade.

Planting and Care: Although plants thrive in moist, partially shaded sites, they also tolerate drier, sunnier conditions.

Ornamental Value: Assets include interesting maroon-colored twigs, clusters of creamy flowers in late spring, and blue fruits in late summer.

Landscape Usage: Mass along stream banks or woodland edges.

Wildlife Benefits: Fruits are consumed by a variety of birds. Foliage is browsed by deer.

Native Habitat: Found along swamps and stream banks in the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and mountains.

Propagation: Stratified seed, semi-hardwood and softwood cuttings.

Also known as Willowdogwood, Swamp Dogwood, Silky Cornel

Written by Leslie Kimel, Georgia Wildlife Federation

Photos courtesy Sally and Andy Wasowski, Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center