Scarlet Fire® Kousa Dogwood

Rutgers first Kousa Dogwood cultivar in 45 years of breeding, featuring bright fuchsia/deep pink-red colorations during a long season.

Cornus kousa 'Rutpink' Scarlet Fire® 

• Award winning tree.  2022 Gold Medal Program - Outstanding Plants for the Mid-Atlantic Garden by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society (PHS)
• First-ever dark-pink blooming kousa dogwood.
• This new cultivar, 'Rutpink', tradenamed Scarlet Fire® dogwood, is a consistently pink-bracted selection, with deep pink to fuchsia coloration at its peak. 
• This new cultivar is the product of a long standing program of hybridization and selection of big-bracted dogwoods, in this instance the result of an open-pollination event of an unnamed pink-bracted Kousa dogwood breeding selection held in the Rutgers University germplasm collection.
• The dramatic bracts glow pink from a distance unlike any other dogwood. Floriferous and precocious, the original tree flowered heavy at only 4 years old and budded plants can set many floral buds only after two growing seasons!
• The moderately vigorous tree is well branched and grows 3+ feet in first year and to 8 feet high in years.
• The medium-to-large-size bracts are generally non-overlapping and pointed giving them a very distinct shape that along with their striking color sets this plant apart from other Kousa dogwoods in the landscape.
• Developing bracts size up early and can be purple in color, with more pointed shape vs. the more rounded mature bracts. Leaves are an attractive dark green with purple tinges in new growth, especially on young plants.