The darkest pink bracts (blooms) ever found on a Chinese dogwood can be yours with Scarlet Fire®, the exciting introduction from Rutgers University. Not a hybrid, this tree is the result of many years and countless crosses. It flowers young, offers purple tinged spring leaves, and concludes the show with bright ball-shaped carmine fuchsia berries. What could be lovelier?
Scarlet Fire® is a little showoff, reaching only 8 feet high after a decade's growth but ready to begin flowering the third or fourth year (often the first season in your garden). It will eventually top out at 15 to 20 feet, as wide as it is tall, but it stays small for many years, and you will treasure the big blooms on such a petite tree. Magnificent!
The season begins with new leaves unfurling in spring. Although they turn solid green by summer, for their first weeks they are often streaked and washed with purple. It's a lovely effect and one that adds another season of beauty to Scarlet Fire's® display.
Before spring is out, the rosy pink bracts have opened. Reaching 5 inches across, they are unbelievably showy, with a vibrant hue visible from some distance. And Scarlet Fire® is a generous bloomer, filling the branches with brilliant fuchsia that can last up to 2 months. Stunning!
After the flowers pass, they are replaced by perfectly round, knobby fruits about an inch in diameter and colored a very rich shade of rose. Birds adore these fruits, and will come sing for their supper all summer long.
Dogwood is famously easy to grow, with the Chinese cultivars more humidity tolerant than our native species, so you will love the vigor of Scarlet Fire®. It's also quite cold hardy, putting up with the severe winters of Zone 5 as effortlessly as the balmy ones of Zone 8.
Find a special place for this tree and begin to enjoy its rich, multiseason beauty. You will treasure it for years to come.
