Cornus kousa pruning

[RemiYardAlex]

Hello,

I need some advice on where to prune a tree. I have Cornus kousa that was planted 4 years ago. I’m wondering if I’ve made a mistake by letting it grow. The tree has some dominate stems right now and no dominate central leader. I think I need to make cuts where indicated with letters. I’m thinking D needs to be cut at the collar because it’s taken over as a leader but I’m not sure which to keep as a new leader A B or C or if it doesn’t matter for this kind of tree. Any advice will be helpful. Thank you.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

A dogwood is really just a shrub with high asperations... I don't see any real red flags there.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Hello,

I need some advice on where to prune a tree. I have Cornus kousa that was planted 4 years ago. I’m wondering if I’ve made a mistake by letting it grow. The tree has some dominate stems right now and no dominate central leader. I think I need to make cuts where indicated with letters. I’m thinking D needs to be cut at the collar because it’s taken over as a leader but I’m not sure which to keep as a new leader A B or C or if it doesn’t matter for this kind of tree. Any advice will be helpful. Thank you.

Unprofessionally speaking, if this were in my yard and I wanted to create a single leader, I would cut at your "D" or my "X" in the cropped photo.
But, looking at the photo, the tripod junction of a-b-c looks like it could be an issue down the road.

It has a nice shape to it now, probably looks even better covered in leaves.
I think I would leave it be.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Dogwoods max out at like 25 feet, and they will bush out no matter what, just prune for shape

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Dogwoods max out at like 25 feet, and they will bush out no matter what, just prune for shape

Are these trees grafted? It kind of looks like it where the two leaders come together.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Are these trees grafted? It kind of looks like it where the two leaders come together.

I'm not that familiar with the kousa varietal, jut I would put this in the class of ornamentals... max out at 25 feet, and spread... they're really nice looking, hut honestly just an overgrown shrub... just prune to shape.

 

[ATH]

I'd probably cut at the red marks I made here. Next time I'd prune at the blue mark (and others after seeing growth). Only reason I wouldn't prune at blue is it would look very off balance and "empty" in the middle.

Kousa can be a very nice "proper" tree. Yeah, its small, but they look best when trained like a tree, IMHO.

 

[BeatCJ]

I would prune D just as said in the original post and be happy with it. But the tree will be OK if it's left alone, too. It's really up to you.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

@RemiYardAlex
Yours will probably look like mine in about 50 years.
I've been here 30 years and my grandparents planted it 20 or so years before.
I've only pruned the lower limbs in the way of the riding mower.