Viburnums - Landcape and Garden Wonders

Viburnums are plant that I can't imagine a landscpe being without. If I had to eliminate all varieties from my gardens except for one I would be hard pressed to decide which to keep. All varieties of viburnums are attractive, versatile, adaptable shrubs for any landscape. They can be used as hedges or screens and in mixed perennial/shrub borders. They can also stand alone as specimen plants. They usually take the form of shrubs, but some species can become small ornamental trees. They range in size from the Dwarf American Cranberrybush at 2 feet tall by 2 feet wide, to the Siebold at over 15 feet tall. Viburnums are plants with year round interest. Viburnums have white to pink flowers in the spring. They have large, attractive and often textured leaves. Some viburnums have wonderfully fragrant flowers that are produced in snowball shaped clusters in April. Their flower clusters can consist of pink buds, which develop into white flowers. Some fruits are red and turn black with age. Leaves are glossy, dark green and turn a burgundy color in the fall. Midsummer berries are an important food source for birds. Viburnums have colorful red to purple leaves. Some viburnums can become medium-size trees, especially if they are pruned. Viburnums excel as specimen plants or as anchors in mixed borders. You won't find a more versatile group of shrubs for hedges or for massing in groups, since viburnums hold their own in every season. Some viburnums, such as Prague viburnum 'Pragense', are evergreen. Others, such as leatherleaf viburnum, are semi-evergreen in colder climates, losing their leaves when temperatures dip below 10 degrees. We like Viburnums because of their adaptability and durability. While they would prefer full sun and moderately watered, well-drained rich soils, they grow very well in part shade in alkaline, clay soils. Diseases and pests are not common for viburnums. We have more trouble from my kids running over them with brush hogs. They claim they were testing their durability. Yet all the viburnums they chopped to the ground survived. In fact, we sold these plants for a premium as they produced better numbers of desireable stems. Their fibrous root system makes them transplant and propagate easily. (We do have more difficulty with the Korean Spice rooted cuttings.) If you are shopping for a sharp hardy shrub consider one of the many cultivars of the Viburnum family. In fact select a couple of them. You will be rewarded with shrubs with all season interest. Viburnums have long been popular garden plants, celebrated for their white, often fragrant spring flowers and their fall color. But it's the Asian viburnums that have so far ruled the roost. Perhaps the most widely appreciated viburnums are the Burkwood viburnum (Viburnum x burkwoodii), and the Korean spice viburnum (V. carlesii), both of which fill the air with a pleasant odorin mid-spring. Also popular is the doublefile viburnum (V. plicatum f. tomentosum), valued for its layered habit, fall foliage, and clusters of red fruits. Viburnum acerifolium (Maple-leafed viburnum) Although I wouldn't garden without any of these, I have a special fondness for several of our very gardenworthy native viburnums. They may not provide the enticing flower fragrance of their Asian cousins, but I love them not only for their rich fall foliage color but also for their fruit displays, which attract wildlife to my garden in the fall and durring the bleak winter months. In addition, several are useful to today's waterwise gardeners or for urban conditions. They require only corrective pruning, and none commonly suffer from pests or diseases. I would be hardpressed to say which viburnum I would choose if I could only have one. Viburnums are moist woodland plants. In nature they are found along steam banks from Long Island to Florida. When you come to our 5275 West Swamp Rd. location ask us to show some in their native habitat that we found along our stream bank. These plants perform well under normal landscape conditions. I especially like the floral display in the spring and these viburnums that bear fruit in the fall. Winterthur has great red leaves and abundant fruit in the fall. This cultivar needs a cross pollinator such as viburnum nudum. Native Americans used Viburnum dentatum (arrowwood viburnum) for arrow shafts. There stems are long and strait. This plant will grow in places many plants struggle. So if you have had trouble with plants in a harsh location try this cultivar. Viburnums We raise over 10 types of Viburnums on our farms from seedlings to 5' shrubs. If you have poor soils due to compacting from construction, try viburnums. Being rugged and hardy, they perform where other plants fail. American Cranberry Bush KoreanSpice Blackhaw ArrowwoodViburnum Chicago Luster (we have 500 3-6' that must be sold by Sept 28 2005) Dawn Summer Snowflake Shasta Winterthur Blue Muffin Burkwood Erie Tea Judd Korean Spice Praque Siebold In the Tyrolean Alps, okay, the southern "Alps Mountains" includes a region named Tyrol, a glacier-preserved 5,300-year old "ice-mummy" was found in 1991. This prehistoric man was preserved better than any other specimen ever found. What an incredible discovery. He was just lying there in the snow of the Hauslabjoch Pass on a warm September day when two hiking tourists saw his head. He had a bow of Evergreen Yew wood and arrows with shafts of Rosewood. There was even a stone arrowhead of flint, the hardened dark quartz, an axehead, and what seemed to be a medicine kit in a box of wood from a Birch tree. Birch is a popular landscaping tree with many varieties. How 'bout that, all these trees which are mentioned, we sell at Highland Hill Farm! Where we invite our customers to explore for Indian artifacts, hunt, fish, camp, etc., maybe you can get lucky too. We have 5 properties, totalling 1100 acres, near the town of Milan, Pa, on the western side of Susquehanna River in rural Bradford County. >From Highland Hill Farm it is about a two-hour drive if you'll please obey the speed limits. America's prehistoric residents and later Native American Indians used straight branches from Arrowwood Viburnums, as the name implies, to make their arrows' shafts. Did you ever wonder at what point in their growth the outside of thin tree boughs and twigs develop bark and become wood? When do little seedling's stems, their "mini-trunks," grow up enough to develop bark and become wood? How thick does a green wispy thin twig have to become before it's a branch of wood? The answer is, generally, at about a half-inch diameter. In fact, that is just about the diameter of the Alpine Iceman's arrows. The greatest find since the discovery of the Neanderthal Neandertal) Man and the Cro-Magnon Man in France was barely a few feet over the Italian side of the border with Austria resting at an altitude of 10,500 feet. A total of four books, two books popular enough to become paperbacks, have since been written about "Oetzi," or "Otzi," as the ice-mummy has been named. Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier, by Brenda Fowler, was published in 2000. The Man in the Ice was published in 1995, by Konrad Spindler, the local archaeologist brought in when it became obvious a modern-day murder victim hadn't been found. His book was updated in 2001. Two children's books have also been published to help develop their interest in historical science as something they'll find "current," and not "boring." The intense study of the "ice-mummy" yielding all the detailed information for these books was performed at Innsbruck University, and the body is now on display at the museum in Bolzano, Italy. Do you see it? The point here is that when you plant trees and shrubs you aren't just creating aesthetics, adding beauty, as implied by "ornamental" in so many of the names. You aren't just adding a wind break or privacy screen. You are, in fact, giving your property additional natural resources. After all the hours spent on this, and the !%^&@$*%#! Are/but/a/vitae, I need a break. If you need more info go to http://www.seedlingsrus.com/Viburnums.html