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Chinese Viburnum (Giant Snowball Bush)

13 years ago

The snowballs are all turning white now, and the Japanese maples are leafed out in reds. And you all know what is in the foreground!

{{gwi:679191}}

kay

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Comments (9)

Julia WV (6b)
13 years ago
Beautiful Kay. Those daylilies sure do look healthy. No scapes yet? LOL.

Julia
Cindy zone 6a
13 years ago
Just beautiful!!! Thanks, we sure need this up here. So cold still. 15 degrees below normal. bummer!! Your pictures make me feel much warmer.
Cindy
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Rita, I love azaleas too. I am not a fan of the ever popular Encore azaleas, because the ones I have had put on an abbreviated show in spring and then a substandard bloom in fall. Give me the old fashioned kind that bloom once in spring, but bloom their heads off! I love them! You are right, those are new tulips and a few of the pink diamond and /queen of the night are beginning to bloom too. This first group of Dutch Iris is open, but I have have several other groups of them that are just beginning to put up buds, or green sticks as you say, with no bloom yet evident. I too love them. kay
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Well, I am glad the laundry soap worked for you. I am going out to sprinkle some on a Fire Ant mound. They decided to build right in my vegetable garden, for Pete's sakes. We are expecting Thunderstorms today...in fact any minute. I just heard a distant rumble. Need to move all the seedlings back into the greenhouse in case we get hail. Ugh! Gotta go put some plastic collars around the newly set Genovese Basil seedlings so they don't get beat to death. I cut the bottoms out of old 3-4" plastic pots and set them around tender plants to protect them from wind damage. I stick a fat stick next to each tender plant to keep cutworms from chewing through them, or use paper collars. Once the stems get thick and tough, the paper collars have decayed and turned back to the earth. I find things that work that are cost-free and recycle everything I can. I do not like to use insecticides or chemical fertilizers. Yes, my place is a working garden. If you lived close to me, we could share plants and help each other. (I have way too many vegetable seedlings this year. EVERY seed grew!) Ain't that the pits to live so far from the ones you click with? Oh, well, I am glad to have you all on here to share with and cry with too. Some of us call each other and some we exchange emails, Some of us trade plants and things. It is great to have long-distance friends. These are the best bunch of people I know. Better get back out there and finish before the storm hits. The clouds are building fast. Hope we don't get hail and tornadoes tonight. Happy Earth Day! ~Annie
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Comments (5)
I haven't had to prune mine routinely yet because a frightened deer (best guess) leaped into the middle of it in its first winter and I had to tidy up some major breakage then. Like Cookie I like to do as much trimming as I can in late winter. However, pruning shortly after bloom would accomplish both a tidy-up if you wished and also allow the next year's flower buds to form on the new growth afterward. To me the bloom clusters become somewhat unsightly with age, and next year I expect to need to get out the extra-long-handled clippers to trim them off fairly shortly after bloom anyway.
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Comments (8)
kitase12 - I'm thinking the same. Some plants I love are very quick to finish blooming and do very little the rest of the season. At least with some Viburnums you do get the fall color, which I love. And you do need background players for the more showy plants. But I have a small 1/4 acre property and it makes a difference. Every plant has to contribute to get the experience you want. I stopped growing peonies because they would drop their petals in a heavy rain and some years I got 4 days of bloom. [g]. Baptisia...I love and I enjoy both the blooms and the seed pods, but they are a large plant and take up a lot of room if they are green all summer and fall. I just noticed the bloom on Purple Smoke is finishing already and developing pods, and it just opened bloom a week ago. I garden organically too and often there is an alternative way to deal with a pest, but the Viburnum beetle, has not had one that succeeded. I had a winter moth infestation in all my trees, Maples, Japanese Maples. Six years of it and it just about defoliated the trees a couple of times. There are a lot of dead branches up in the canopy of some. I just let it run it's course and hoped for the best. The University of MA worked on a project for finding a parasite for the winter moths. All of a sudden two years ago, no winter moths. My trees this year and last are pristine. The same thing with the Red Lily Leaf Beetle that I would make the rounds hand picking every morning and stopped trying to grow lilies for awhile. They have now disappeared in my garden for the same reason, a lab at a university fixed the problem. It would be great if someone could work on the Viburnum pests. :-) Hydrangea paniculate are my new interest. I have tried growing the Mopheads for a good 10 years and there are too many years that I don't see a bloom and when I do, I only get a handful. I prefer the white/green blooms with a touch of rose over the blue anyway, so it makes sense to make the switch to the paniculatas. I also like to dry the blooms for arrangements in the house. I bought two Little Lime two years ago and I love them. In a mixed bed with roses and other perennials. I like the firm stems that hold the blooms up. I think I will look for a larger version of the Little Lime maybe for this location instead of the viburnum. I haven't taken the time to see what other varieties there are. We were walking through some community gardens in Boston a few weeks ago and we saw a few gorgeous Snowball Viburnums. Very healthy looking mature specimens. That's what gave me the idea, but I'll just have to enjoy them in someone else's garden. :-)
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organic_kitten
Original Author
13 years ago
Julia,
You would think I would have scapes, but not yet. Even in my iris beds, only one has put up a acape.

Cindy, it has been so warm here that I am spoiled...and today, 50s seem cooler than I want to work in...The ground is wet from rain, that's my excuse.

Tomorrow, DH and I are going to a nursery my friends have told me about where the prices are unbelieveable. If I A"hit the jackpot", I will post pics.
kay
Nancy
13 years ago
Kay, you and I have a similar planting :) Your Japanese maple is much more mature & beautiful than mine though. My snowball bush isn't in bloom yet either. I won't be showing pics of mine when it does bloom, yours is so much prettier!
Nancy
newyorkrita
13 years ago
That Japanese Maple you have there is stunning. The Viburnums look like they are covered in blooms and those daylilies are growing so well. Spring looks great in your garden.
organic_kitten
Original Author
13 years ago
Believe it or not, that Japanese Maple came from Homw Depot. I saw the tree, let me see probobly about 7 years ago. You cannot see it with it leafed, but it has a lovely artistic look to it in winter. The trunk curves out and back in like an ess shape, but there are multiples curves in the tree. It has the beautiful weeping shape, and at the time we bought it, It cost more than any plant I had ever gotten.($100... no longer the most I have spent on a plant:)) DH bought it for me because I was in love with it.

We set the tree on the ground, (there were no daylilies, or any other plants there, and the path wasn't there either. We didn't plant it then. and when we did decide to plant it, it had sent its taproot deep into the gtound. I cut off the burlap, cut the pot away and built a short wass around it that I filled with rich dirt...it never looked back. I do love that tree.

The snowballs are covered with blooms, Rita. That is a wonderful compliment from a talented gardener.

Nancy, please post your bush photos. Mine are several years old, and they have grown a little too much..but DH likes them as well as I do.

kay
newyorkrita
13 years ago
Kay- I have many different types of Viburnums but they are mostly the ones known for fruiting. Yes, they do bloom and look very good doing so (at least I think so) but they are types known for producing berries which are fruits used to attract the backyard songbirds here. I have one that is just a showey bloomer which makes masses of flowers, its named Popcorn and aptly named at that.

I think the weeping form of the red Japanese Maple makes it even more lovely.
jean_ar
13 years ago
WOWJean
triple_creek
13 years ago
Pretty picture. I love your story of the Japanese Maple. It was meant to be in that spot.

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