How much does Flowering Dogwood move?
Flowering Dogwood moves a fair amount with seasonal humidity, so plan for expansion and contraction carefully on wide panels, and consider quartersawn stock or a design that lets the wood move.
A 24-inch-wide Flowering Dogwood panel, across the seasons
Going from humid (summer, unconditioned) (about 13% moisture content) to dry (heated interior, winter) (about 6%), a 24-inch-wide Flowering Dogwood panel changes width by roughly:
0.77″
Flatsawn (plain-sawn)
Tangential shrinkage 12%
0.44″
Quartersawn
Radial shrinkage 7%
Computed with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory dimensional-change formula from published green-to-oven-dry shrinkage figures. Real-world movement varies with your actual humidity range, board width, and how the wood was dried, this is a representative estimate, not a guarantee.
Flatsawn vs. quartersawn Flowering Dogwood
Flatsawn Flowering Dogwood moves about 1.7× as much as quartersawn across its width (tangential shrinkage of 12% versus radial 7%). That’s why quartersawn stock is prized for tabletops, wide panels, and anything where seasonal movement would cause problems, it moves less and stays flatter. The gap is modest for Flowering Dogwood, so flatsawn stock is often perfectly workable.
Run your own numbers
These figures use a 24-inch panel and a typical seasonal swing. For your exact board width and humidity range, use the interactive calculator, Flowering Dogwood is already loaded with its verified shrinkage data.
Open the wood movement calculator →Managing Flowering Dogwood movement in a build
Wood moves across its width, not its length, so the wider the panel, the more it matters. The classic precautions apply: let the wood acclimate to your shop before building, attach wide tops with fasteners that allow movement (elongated screw holes, buttons, or figure-8 clips), avoid gluing solid panels rigidly across the grain, and account for seasonal swing in fitted parts like drawers and doors. For Flowering Dogwood specifically, its higher-than-average movement makes these precautions especially important on wide work.