Hi,
We have two beautiful kousa dogwood trees full of plump red berries, and I've noticed that no wildlife is eating them. Why is this? I have searched online and cannot find any discussion about poisonous dogwood berries, but I'm beginning to wonder...
Thanks for any help to our mystery!
Wendi
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- Senior Member
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- Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:13 pm
- Location: Middle Georgia USA
I'm not a dogwood expert so when you say you have a kousa dogwood I don't know what kind that is.
I know I live in Georgia and we have tons of dogwoods on our property.
The deer and turkey browse them lightly.
The tweety birds eat more of the red berries than any of the other animals.
That said there are just so many there is no way they could eat them all. And there are so many other types of food I'm sure this is not their only diet.
But yes they do eat them just not much.
I know I live in Georgia and we have tons of dogwoods on our property.
The deer and turkey browse them lightly.
The tweety birds eat more of the red berries than any of the other animals.
That said there are just so many there is no way they could eat them all. And there are so many other types of food I'm sure this is not their only diet.
But yes they do eat them just not much.
Kousa dogwood aka Cornus kousa aka Japanese dogwood is native to Asia. The berries are larger then our native dogwood aka Cornus florida and birds often have trouble eating them. They will sometimes eat the fallen ones after they have rotted. It's a similar problem for the birds with some of the newer varieties of crabapple. I always recommend that the smaller berried trees be planted for the wildlife.
Newt
Newt
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