The Flowering Dogwood is both the State Tree and the State Flower for Virginia. It used to be a common choice as a decorative plant even among those who didn’t care about planting native. Its small size made it easy to landscape around and the bright white flowers were a popular choice for aesthetic purposes. However, the introduction of Dogwood Anthracnose (aka Dogwood Blight) has devastated the species. Because of the frequent mortality, not as many people have been planting them and many that had been planted have died. The wild population is in the process of slowly recovering, but the Flowering Dogwood’s place in developed landscaping has yet to reemerge.
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