47 plants in this collection
'Chindo' is a bold, glossy-leaved evergreen viburnum, a vigorous selection grown for both ornamental drama and Southern toughness, hung in season with cascading clusters of brilliant red fruit. Few broadleaf evergreens offer this combination of shine, structure, and seasonal display at so substantial a scale.
The cinnamon-leaf viburnum is one of the great broadleaf evergreens of the genus, a substantial, dignified shrub from the mountain forests of western China, where mist gathers in the valleys and plants grow with quiet endurance. The species name cinnamomifolium means leaves like cinnamon, for the large, glossy, deeply triple-veined leaves that echo those of a true cinnamon tree, tooled and leathery as fine bookbinding. This is a plant that holds the line rather than blooms and fades with the hour.
Carl Peter Thunberg, the Swedish physician who talked his way onto the Dutch trading island of Dejima in 1775 and used the post to become one of the first Europeans to seriously botanize a closed Japan, was the first to describe this plant to science. Richard Oldham, the last of the great Kew collectors, gathered the shrub again near Nagasaki in 1862 and called the plant, a little dismissively, a small tree on the hills. In a garden the plant never quite loses that ambition, settling instead into a sturdy, slow evergreen bush.
Luzon viburnum is one of the quiet unknowns of Southern gardening, a handsome large shrub grown around Houston for years and almost nowhere else in the United States. Woodlanders collected this plant in the Houston area, where the species had already proven durable and undemanding in Gulf Coast heat. Viburnum luzonicum comes from open forest, scrub, and roadside thickets across southern China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and the epithet points to Luzon, largest of the Philippine islands, from which Robert Allen Rolfe described the species at Kew.
They carry their Roman name almost unchanged. Tinus was what the Romans called the shrub two thousand years ago, the name Pliny the Elder set down in his Natural History, and when Linnaeus came to catalogue them he simply kept it. The reason gardeners have held onto Viburnum tinus just as long is that they flower in the cold. While the rest of the garden is shut down for winter, they cover themselves in tight clusters of deep carmine buds that open a few at a time across weeks into small white flowers, so they carry both colors at once through the bleakest stretch of the year. The foliage is the second argument, dense and dark and glossy, evergreen to the ground with none of the gapping that lesser shrubs fall into. 'Spring Bouquet' is the compact, well-behaved selection, rounding into a tidy four to six feet, which makes it the one to reach for when you want a hedge, a low screen, or a piece of evergreen structure that also happens to bloom in February. Metallic blue-black berries follow for the birds, set best when more than one plant grows nearby. They take shade, salt, and coastal wind without complaint. Few evergreens hand you this much in the dead of winter, which is precisely the season you'll be grateful for it.
The hybrid that earned a name the hard way. Viburnum 'Lord Byron' is a Southern-bred cross of Viburnum obovatum, Walter's viburnum, with Viburnum rufidulum, the rusty blackhaw, created by the plantsman Paul Cox of the San Antonio Botanical Garden and named for his son.
Mapleleaf viburnum does what almost no other native shrub will do: thrive in dry shade. Most of the eastern American natives that gardeners reach for, serviceberry, red buckeye, sweetshrub, oakleaf hydrangea, want steady moisture and at least a few hours of sun. Viburnum acerifolium is the one that walks into the dry, root-tangled, low-light pocket beneath an established oak or beech and simply gets on with the job. The native range is genuinely vast, from New Brunswick south to Florida and west to Texas and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in upland forests, rocky slopes, and the edges of bluffs, making this one of the most widespread and most underused native shrubs of eastern North America.
This deciduous shrub with small serrated leaves, white flowers, and blue-black fruit may be a Deep South form or subspecies of Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum). Taxonomy confusing and sometimes listed as Viburnum dentatum var. scabrellum, Viburnum semitomentosum, etc., it is found on more well drained upland sites than where one would expect to find Viburnum dentatum.
Rare and little known evergreen shrub with dense habit. Small leathery leaves are glossy and emerge copper colored and mature to dark green. Steel blue fruit in fall. Introduced into England from the Himalayas in 1904 by Kingdon Ward and sometimes known as Viburnum wardii. We find no common name but "atrocyaneum" means "very deep blue".
This Viburnum is an attractive shrub with lustrous dark green deciduous leaves of firm texture. The creamy white flower clusters appear in spring. The leaves don't scorch in full sun and it appears to be drought tolerant. This is a horticultural selection of the very rare and perhaps endangered Viburnum bracteatum which is found on limestone soils in the NW Georgia - NE Alabama area.
Red flower buds open white, very fragrant in spring
Little known in the US, this large shrub or small tree has attractive evergren foliage with relatively large leaves. Curiously the waxy coating on the leaves enables one to mark on them. Tubular white flowers with lilac stamens.
New compact selection of Arrowwood with glossy leaves and very showy blue fruit in late summer. Said to make a good hedge and be "perfect for residential landscapes". Patented "Proven Winner" from Spring Meadow Nursery. Sun or semi-shade. Moist soil.
Don Shadow says this cultivar holds its rich red fruit all winter. Fruit sets best when pollinated by another cultivar. The form is compact and upright. More upright form, excellent fruit production. Birds enjoy fruit. (See DIR, F&J, HRT)
Linden Viburnum is native to Eastern Asia. This hardy deciduous shrub has flat clusters of white flowers followed by abundant and persistent bright red berries making it very ornamental. It is popular and adaptable in cooler regions but Dirr (Manual of Woody Landscape Plants) advises that in zone 8 it should be planted in "moist soil and partial shade". This selection was shared with us by Brian Upchurch who operated Highland Creek Nursery, an exceptional source of unusual plants in the mountains of North Carolina. Mr. Upchurch obtained this dwarf selection in Japan but was unable to learn of a varietal name, only "Daruma type - no name". In addition to being of a smaller size it appears to have smaller leaves.
This Viburnum is a rare evergreen to semi-evergreen shrub or small tree with spreading often drooping branches. The glossy, leaves are relatively small. It bears white flowers in summer followed by scarlet fruit. Hillier says: "Large specimens in full fruit are extremely effective in autumn". This shrub from western China and the Himalayas seems to be little known in the U.S. but well adapted to the South. Hardy Viburnums are ubiquitous in the North but a number of fine evergreen Viburnums offered by Woodlanders should be in southern gardens. Unfortunately they are scarcely available from nurseries.
This Viburnum is a medium sized evergreen shrub of dense, bushy habit. The small dark green, almost round leaves are distinctive. It bears clusters of small white flowers in late spring. It was introduced from China by E.H. Wilson in 1904 but remains virtually unknown in the U.S. Our stock came from Hillier Nursery in England via Mr. John Frierson of Columbia, SC. This is an unusual Viburnum that seems to grow well in our area.
A splendid large deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub producing very large "snowball" globes of sterile flowers which are first green and then white giving a great show in late spring. Allow ample space in sunny to semi shady location with good, well-drained soil. Native to China and a great Viburnum for the South.
Closely related to V. cassinoides. Birds enjoy fruit. (See DIR, F&J, HRT, O&T)
'Pollinator' is a native smooth witherod grown for a specific and useful job: to pollinate the showier fruiting selections of Viburnum nudum, above all 'Winterthur' and 'Brandywine'. The species is not strictly dioecious, but the flowers set fruit far more heavily when a second, genetically distinct clone blooms nearby, and that is exactly what this plant provides.
