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\u00a9 Aislinn Adams \u00a0Kousa dogwood, Cornus kousa<\/em><\/p>\n Watercolor illustration for a change!<\/strong><\/p>\n All my blogs so far have featured black and white drawings for the \u201cDigging in\u201d gardening column of the Washington Post. This week I thought it was time to introduce some color by posting a watercolor illustration of Kousa dogwood, Cornus kousa<\/em>. The Kousa dogwood, also known as the Japanese flowering dogwood, is native to eastern Asia and Japan but has been gracing the gardens of Europe and North America since the late 1800’s.<\/p>\n My neighbor’s Kousa dogwood<\/strong><\/p>\n I can see my neighbor\u2019s Kousa dogwood outside my side window as I write this blog. Living in an historic home in downtown Salem, Oregon, where the houses stand close together like old friends, I can enjoy looking at my neighbor\u2019s Kousa dogwood without getting out of my chair. The tree is not yet in bloom, unlike its North American cousins, the flowering and Pacific dogwoods. The Kousa dogwood flowers about a month later.<\/p>\n The dogwood flower- not a flower?<\/strong><\/p>\n I have illustrated the Kousa dogwood three times for the \u201cDigging In\u201d gardening column: once in flower, and twice in fruit. The strawberry-like fruit is very attractive in the fall but the flowers in early summer really steal the show. What we so often admire as the dogwood \u201cflower\u201d is in fact not the flower but the flower bracts. The true flowers are tiny and dark green in the center. When the Kousa dogwood is in flower it has a flamboyant air about it, probably because its \u201cflowers\u201d often point upwards in horizontal rows. It\u2019s as if the tree is holding out its arms to embrace passersby and proclaim how good it is to be alive.<\/p>\n