Article in today's (Sunday) NY Times by Anne Raver about a professor at Rutgers who started 30 years ago to create a Cornus cross that would be borer resistant but retain the branching habit and early flowering of florida. He's been woring on florida-kousa x's since. Finally has a number of patented hybrids being produced by commercial growers. No sources listed, though. Try nytimes.com the article might be on-line.

Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on November 21, 1999 at 18:52:35:

This sounds like the Stellar series, some of which have been on the market for a few years. Borer and Discula resistant cultivars, and a broad range of leaf and bract shapes and sizes, and wide range of flowering times. -I want a garden with dogwoods in flower from April through August....

Reply to post by Russ Carlson, on November 21, 1999 at 18:52:35:

Here's something to sell to your affluent lagre landowners.

You know how it's all the rage now to have stone walls along the road with beautiful pillars flanking the driveway. Well you appear to have plantings behind the wall and flanking the pillars. But in fact they are large potted material that comes out for flowering and back to the nursery area for the rest of the year. (Of course with such a large spread they've got a forklift attachment for the tractor).

Start with forsythia, then Cornus florida, then Malus, then Kousa, mix in azelias and rhododendrons as appropriate, then rose of sharon, then pick deciduous fall color - never the same each year - then the pumpkins can climb on the wall, then the holiday evergreens (lights and tinsel opitional), white birches or other ornamental barks and then forsythia again!

Would obviously need good selection and management, right up your alley.

Reply to post by Scott, on November 21, 1999 at 23:42:37:

Who is this client? Longwood Gardens?

Reply to post by Russ Carlson, on November 22, 1999 at 07:40:30:

How could I say? You have so many in that category.

Actually, here in the NY burbs we are seeing the emergence of something you might describe as the "new estates." In the 20's, 30's and 40's the big tree care clients were the great estates. Huge places where money was no object. Tree men were earning maybe $.50/hr. A crew would spend months on a single pruning job. Weeks on a single cavity. The large land parcels are mostly gone but there's LOTS of Wall Street money being spent on massive houses on relatively smaller lots. NY Times did an article last year on stone walls... one reportedly in the $2mill range. One hose on a waterfornt lot reportedly purchased for $14mil and torn down to make room for a new one! I imagine the same phenomenon is observable in Silicon Valley.