Hi all,

I am in the process, yet again, of expanding the rain garden. I have decided to go for more of a woodland edge effect with grasses, shrubs, and a few well placed flowers in the shallower areas.

Ideally, I am looking at winterberry-red sprite and chokeberry-iriquois beauty. Both are small, compact varieties of native Indiana plants.

I would also like to add some red-twig dogwood (or yellow twig?), but I am struggling with my overlapping objectives--maintaining natives, the need for compactness, and the want of varigated leaf pattern.

Would red osier dogwood be able to be shaped to 3-4 feet and pruned heavily? Is there a dwarf, varigated cultivar of C. sericea that anyone would suggest that would work better?