It was a long battle to get this Reutgers hybrid planted in the June of 2025.
The original landscape designer we hired in Spring 2024 didn't seem to design. Her specialty was delay. I explained to her that I wanted this tree and others. She promised to do our entire landscaping project (including trees) no later than the Fall of 2024. Even so, nothing at all happened on her side. Thus, we were forced to dismiss her in November 2024 and then hired her boss. After one meeting, he disappeared until late March. Although he was the paid landscape designer, I finally ended up having to do my own landscape design work. He was supposed to at least source the trees I wanted. After several weeks he claimed this tree was not available anywhere. I continued to pressure him. Somehow, this not-possible-to-source dream finally turned into an actual tree. Nest came a delay in getting a crew to install the trees. The landscape job he promised to complete by the first of May eventually was worked on (and then only partially) in June... A year later we are still waiting for plants we paid for connected to that June 2025 installation but never received.

Luckily, this Constellation Dogwood was a tree that did actually get planted. A long hot Summer immediately arrived post planting, giving new trees no time to adjust to temperatures in the 90's and brutal summer heat. My husband was forced out in the heat watering and tending the new trees on a daily basis, Thus, most did survive the heat. Since they had spent most of the Summer just surviving - and then following Winter of doing the same in the cold - it was a pleasant surprise to see this dogwood bloom for the first time this Spring. She's been through a lot. Nevertheless, she is a very pretty tree who seems to be doing well now. There was a point last Summer when she had lost most of her leaves and really didn't look like she'd make it. But flowering this Spring is a good indication that the worst of her adapting may be behind her. Or so I hope.

Her blooms start out as green and not pure while like when mature: https://pbase.com/britestar/image/176302343