Viburnum opulus 'Roseum'

About this cultivar:

Viburnum opulus 'Roseum' produces branches covered with large, snowball-like clusters of white or green-tinted white flowers - which sometimes age to pink. Ordinary Viburnum opulus has lace-cap flowers (a circle of large sterile flowers surrounding miniscule fertile flowers) but 'Roseum' has only the large sterile flowers, which results in a big round three-inch pompom.

Its healthy, vigorous fresh green leaves are great for cut flower arrangements. Or leave them on and they product purple-tinted autumn colour. Apparently this has been in gardens since the 16th century! The common name 'guelder rose' relates to the Dutch province of Gelderland, where perhaps this cultivar, also called the snowball tree, supposedly originated. Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit (RHS AGM). Sometimes called 'Sterile' or 'Snowball'.

A small plant can take four years to begin to be substantialand to flower, but once it is established and finally starts growing, it will have rapid growth and will quickly bounce back from even a hard pruning.

• Position: Full sun, partial shade
• Soil: Almost any soil, grows well in Ballyrobert
• Flowers: April, May, June
• Other features: Grows well in Ballyrobert, Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit (RHS AGM)
• Hardiness: Fully hardy, grows well in Ballyrobert, H6 - Hardy in all of UK and northern Europe (-20 to -15°C)
• Habit: Clump forming, bushy
• Foliage: Deciduous
• Height: 100 - 300 cm (3.5 - 10 ft) Prune!
• Spread: 100 - 390 cm (3.5 - 13 ft) Prune!
• Time to full growth: 10 to 20 years
• Plant type: Herbaceous Perennial, shrub, tree
• Colour: Green, white
• Goes well with: Clematis

About this genus:

Viburnum is a genus of about 150–175 species of shrubs or (in a few species) small trees in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae. The member species are native throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with a few species extending into tropical montane regions in South America. Long popular in gardens one species, Viburnum tinus, was found depicted in the ruins of Pompeii – specially in a fresco in the House of the Wedding of Alexander. The genus name is what the romans called Viburnum lantana.

Viburnums are quite varied but generally bloom in April and May. They vary in their height, spread, and style of flower but are similar in preferring sun and part shade and in being disease and pest resistant. They will grow almost anywhere that isn’t waterlogged, and they can usually be controlled by pruning. Often they are paired with clematis (to add summer flowering interest)

While most flowers are unscented, those that are fragrant are wonderfully so. Some species also have a fringe of large, showy sterile flowers around the perimeter of the corymb to act as a pollinator target. An interesting source of diversity in the viburnums comes with the leaf shape and texture. The fruit is often also of visual interest, with red, to dark purple to black berries, which often serve as an important food source for birds.

Thus such diverse, tough, easy to grow, beautiful, disease resistant plants are ubiquitous in gardens. I once heard that if you can’t name an attractive shrub in a garden then ‘Viburnum’ is not a bad guess! Val Bourne has said “Every garden should contain at least one spring-flowering viburnum” and I couldn’t agree more.

The Tyrolean Iceman, the well-preserved-in-ice natural mummy of a man who lived between 3400 and 3100, was found with long, straight shoots of some viburnum. Presumably these shoots were used for arrows, however I like to think he was a pre-historic gardener just doing a spot of pruning…