Dogwood trees, like other trees and shrubs, vary massively in price according to the size of the specimen you are buying. The more time, work, and energy that has gone into growing a plant means, the more it is going to cost to purchase.
Here we look at the typical cost for various sizes of dogwood trees and explore if there is a difference in price between different dogwood types.
Table of Contents
What Affects Dogwood Tree Cost?
The biggest factor that will determine its price is the dogwood tree size. This is because larger specimens will have required more time, care, space, and energy in order to grow them to their current size. To break this down, a dogwood tree that is 4 feet tall will take 2 to 3 years to grow.
This means the grower will have had to dedicate space in their greenhouse to this individual dogwood for 2 to 3 years, and space equals money. It also means 2 to 3 years’ worth of water bills and fertilizer bills will need to be accounted for. By comparison, a dogwood tree of only 2 feet in size will have taken half the time to reach this size, typically around a year.
This means less water, fertilizer, and time will have been dedicated to the tree, and therefore it can be sold for a lower price to cover these costs. As a smaller specimen, it will also have taken up less space in a grower’s greenhouse, which means they could grow more trees in the same amount of space.
Plant growers will work out how much profit each square foot of growth in a greenhouse will bring in, which typically results in larger plants costing more money because they are taking up more space to cultivate.
Price of Dogwood Seeds
If you want to grow a dogwood tree on a budget, then seeds will be the most inexpensive way to do this. Seeds do not require any time or work put in by the grower, so they can be sold fairly cheaply. For a single packet of Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) seeds, you can expect to pay around $6.
This will include roughly 9 seeds, working out at just under 70 cents per seed. When you start to buy dogwood seeds in larger amounts, this drives the price down per seed. 1oz of Flowering Dogwood seeds will include around 283 seeds individual seeds, and this will cost around $18, making each seed roughly 6 cents.
For a greater bulk buy, 1lb of seeds will include roughly 4524 seeds and be priced at around $80. This works out at less than 2 cents per seed. From this, we can see that seeds are a very economical way to get a dogwood tree. However, the drawback is of course that it is going to require much more patience. It will be several years before your tree reaches 3 to 4 feet in size and decades before it gains its ultimate height.
Another consideration when buying seeds is that they don’t always germinate. Successful germination depends on suitable conditions and the right level of care, and this is never guaranteed. Comparatively, when you buy a dogwood tree that has already started to grow, the root system will be stronger and more developed, making this a much safer bet. Though purchasing a dogwood tree is going to cost more than buying dogwood seeds, it does present a more reliable option.
Price of Dogwood Trees
The price of a dogwood tree will be affected by the type of dogwood you choose, but the biggest deciding factor of the price will be the size. Larger dogwood trees enable you to fast forward in time, giving you an immediate statement in the garden, and this comes at a cost.
For an 8-foot-tall Japanese Dogwood (Cornus kousa) in a 45L pot you can expect to pay in the region of $460. For a smaller specimen of the same tree, a 3-foot dogwood in a 7.5L pot will cost around $100.
If you still want to go smaller, the price will decrease considerably. An 18-inch White Dogwood (Cornus alba) in a 3L pot will cost around $40. Other dogwoods, such as the Bloodtwig Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) will be similarly priced for the same size.
Most Expensive Dogwood
The most expensive type of dogwood tree to buy, by a small margin, is the Japanese Dogwood (Cornus kousa). A 3-foot tall Japanese Dogwood in a 7.5L pot will cost around $100, while a Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) of the same size in a 7L pot will cost slightly less at around $85.
White Dogwoods (Cornus alba) are among the more reasonably priced dogwood trees, and you can get a tree of almost double the size for the same price as a Japanese Dogwood. For example, the Japanese Dogwood in a 7.5L pot will cost around $100, but for the same $100 you could buy a White Dogwood in a 15L pot, measuring around 4 feet tall.
Least Expensive Dogwood
The least expensive dogwood to buy is the Bloodtwig Dogwood, although this is technically a shrub and not a tree. A 16-inch tall Bloodtwig Dogwood in a 3L pot will cost around $40, and a 28-inch tall Bloodtwig Dogwood in a 10L pot will cost roughly $70.
In terms of dogwood trees, the White Dogwood is typically among the least expensive species to buy, but there isn’t a huge amount of difference in price between dogwood species.
Dogwood Tree Propagation
If you want to grow a new dogwood tree and you already have an existing tree, then you don’t need to spend any money at all. Instead, take semi-hardwood cuttings from your existing tree and propagate these in pots of moist soil until they develop roots.
This is a thoroughly rewarding way to produce dogwood trees that is completely free, and it tends to have higher success rates compared with growing the trees from seed.
