When I bought it at Lowes i remember the tag saying it was either a chinese or japanese snowball bush do you know which it would be? Thanks

Can someone recommend a good mail order supply for any of the above vibernum? Walmart is the only place I have seen them at all and they were dead. I asked a local nursery to get me a couple and the guy ordered me the wrong thing. He is a 'freind' and I didn't want to hurt his feelings, esp. since they were just a couple of bucks so I just took them and gave them to another friend. So, I'm still looking.

They both should survive the whack. Spread 1-2" compost as mulch & water weekly if no rain. Snowball bush will likely produce a lot of upright shoots as they're sensitive to pruning too much. Spray off the black aphids that appear on the new growth. They seem to get less aphids in part sun & moist soil than when I had them in full sun. Don't fertilize other than the compost as that will promote even more growth, which you don't want. Lilac won't bloom next year. To keep it tidy & get yearly flowers you can prune 1/3 of the branches back to stem each year. Once they're dormant in fall think about moving one of them away to avoid crowding. I've moved our snowball bushes several times & usually in early spring. They've always survived even though they were coming out of dormancy then. I just moved one again this spring & think they're in permanent places now. If not, I know I can move them again despite what I've read in books.

My mother remembers a "Snowball Bush" that was in her grandmothers yard and would like to have one, but I haven't been able to figure out what it was because it's a common name for different things, likely either some type of hydrangea or viburnum. The thread below lists some things that it might be and said the bloom time can be a clue. Maybe you could just google some images of each one. I think a hydrangea would be in bloom longer than a viburnum. Here is a link that might be useful: Snowball Bush