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Viburnums
By B Hirst, Tue Jan 10th
Viburnums: Shrubs with All Season Interest Viburnums are themost attractive, versatile, adaptable shrubs for any landscape.They can be used as hedges or screens and in mixedperennial/shrub borders. They can also stand alone as specimenplants. They usually take the form of shrubs, but some speciescan become small ornamental trees. They range in size from theDwarf American Cranberrybush at 2 feet tall by 2 feet wide, tothe Siebold at over 15 feet tall. Viburnums are plants with year round interest. Viburnums havewhite to pink flowers in the spring. They have large, attractiveand often textured leaves. Some viburnums have wonderfullyfragrant flowers that are produced in snowball shaped clustersin April. Their flower clusters can consist of pink buds, whichdevelop into white flowers. Some fruits are red and turn blackwith age. Leaves are glossy, dark green and turn a burgundycolor in the fall. Midsummer berries are an important foodsource for birds. Viburnums have colorful red to purple leaves.Some viburnums can become medium-size trees, especially if theyare pruned. Viburnums excel as specimen plants or as anchors inmixed borders. You won't find a more versatile group of shrubsfor hedges or for massing in groups, since viburnums hold theirown 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 whentemperatures 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 inalkaline, clay soils. Diseases and pests are not common forviburnums. We have more trouble from my kids running over themwith brush hogs. They claim they were testing their durability.Yet all the viburnums they chopped to the ground survived. Infact, we sold these plants for a premium as they produced betternumbers of desireable stems. Their fibrous root system makesthem transplant and propagate easily. (We do have moredifficulty with the Korean Spice rooted cuttings.)
If you are shopping for a sharp hardy shrub consider one of themany cultivars of the Viburnum family. In fact select a coupleof them. You will be rewarded with shrubs with all seasoninterest. Viburnums have long been popular garden plants, celebrated fortheir 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 Burkwoodviburnum (Viburnum x burkwoodii), and the Korean spice viburnum(V. carlesii), both of which fill the air with a pleasant odorinmid-spring. Also popular is the doublefile viburnum (V. plicatumf. tomentosum), valued for its layered habit, fall foliage, andclusters of red fruits. Viburnum acerifolium (Maple-leafedviburnum) Although I wouldn't garden without any of these, Ihave a special fondness for several of our very gardenworthynative viburnums. They may not provide the enticing flowerfragrance of their Asian cousins, but I love them not only fortheir rich fall foliage color but also for their fruit displays,which attract wildlife to my garden in the fall and durring thebleak winter months. In addition, several are useful to today'swaterwise gardeners or for urban conditions. They require onlycorrective pruning, and none commonly suffer from pests ordiseases. I would be hardpressed to say which viburnum I wouldchoose if I could only have one. Viburnums are moist woodland plants. In nature they are foundalong steam banks from Long Island to Florida. When you come toour 5275 West Swamp Rd. location ask us to show some in theirnative habitat that we found along our stream bank. These plantsperform well under normal landscape conditions. I especiallylike the floral display in the spring and these viburnums thatbear fruit in
the fall. Winterthur has great red leaves andabundant fruit in the fall. This cultivar needs a crosspollinator such as viburnum nudum. Native Americans used Viburnum dentatum (arrowwood viburnum) forarrow shafts. There stems are long and strait. This plant willgrow in places many plants struggle. So if you have had troublewith plants in a harsh location try this cultivar. Viburnums Weraise over 10 types of Viburnums on our farms from seedlings to5' shrubs. If you have poor soils due to compacting fromconstruction, try viburnums. Being rugged and hardy, theyperform where other plants fail. American Cranberry BushKoreanSpice Blackhaw ArrowwoodViburnum Chicago Luster (we have500 3-6' that must be sold by Sept 28 2005) Dawn SummerSnowflake Shasta Winterthur Blue Muffin Burkwood Erie Tea JuddKorean Spice Praque Siebold
In the Tyrolean Alps, okay, the southern "Alps Mountains"includes a region named Tyrol, a glacier-preserved 5,300-yearold "ice-mummy" was found in 1991. This prehistoric man waspreserved better than any other specimen ever found. What anincredible discovery. He was just lying there in the snow of theHauslabjoch Pass on a warm September day when two hikingtourists saw his head. He had a bow of Evergreen Yew wood andarrows with shafts of Rosewood. There was even a stone arrowheadof flint, the hardened dark quartz, an axehead, and what seemedto be a medicine kit in a box of wood from a Birch tree. Birchis a popular landscaping tree with many varieties. How 'boutthat, all these trees which are mentioned, we sell at HighlandHill Farm! Where we invite our customers to explore for Indian artifacts,hunt, fish, camp, etc., maybe you can get lucky too. We have 5properties, totalling 1100 acres, near the town of Milan, Pa, onthe western side of Susquehanna River in rural Bradford County.From Highland Hill Farm it is about a two-hour drive if you'llplease obey the speed limits. America's prehistoric residentsand later Native American Indians used straight branches fromArrowwood Viburnums, as the name implies, to make their arrows'shafts. Did you ever wonder at what point in their growth theoutside of thin tree boughs and twigs develop bark and becomewood? When do little seedling's stems, their "mini-trunks," growup enough to develop bark and become wood? How thick does agreen wispy thin twig have to become before it's a branch ofwood? The answer is, generally, at about a half-inch diameter.In fact, that is just about the diameter of the Alpine Iceman'sarrows. The greatest find since the discovery of the NeanderthalNeandertal) Man and the Cro-Magnon Man in France was barely afew feet over the Italian side of the border with Austriaresting at an altitude of 10,500 feet. A total of four books,two books popular enough to become paperbacks, have since beenwritten about "Oetzi," or "Otzi," as the ice-mummy has beennamed. Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Foundin 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 amodern-day murder victim hadn't been found. His book was updatedin 2001. Two children's books have also been published to helpdevelop their interest in historical science as somethingthey'll find "current," and not "boring." The intense study ofthe "ice-mummy" yielding all the detailed information for thesebooks was performed at Innsbruck University, and the body is nowon display at the museum in Bolzano, Italy. Do you see it? The point here is that when you plant trees andshrubs you aren't just creating aesthetics, adding beauty, asimplied by "ornamental" in so many of the names. You aren't justadding a wind break or privacy screen. You are, in fact, givingyour 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 tohttp://www.seedlingsrus.com About the author:Grower of trees plants and shrubs for over 45 years
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