Hi Michelle,

I had never heard of an Alleghany Viburnum, so I googled it to see what you had, and happened to run into a few really good links. I probably should have, but I didnÂt know it was a PlantSelect selection in Â97. That means it should work really well for you! The first link is to PlantSelect. You canÂt link directly to individual pages on PS, so if you want to see what they have to say, click on Alpha Listing of Plants, and then scroll down to Viburnum and click on it.

http://plantselect.org/

And hereÂs a couple more links to sites with good informationÂand pictures on the second link.

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Newintro/allegh.html

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4DMG/Trees/Shrubs/allghny.htm

And the last one is a link to a woody plant deer resistant list which I just found and now have in my favorites for future postings too. I found a couple other sites that listed it as pretty deer resistant too, but if itÂs small, you still might want to protect it in the beginning.

http://www.ecostudies.org/lma_deer_resistant_woodies.html

Hope somebody else comes along who has personal experience for you,
Skybird

Thanks! Three cheers for you!! I had searched with quotes around the name and didn't get the same hits you did. Yours are better - esp. the Colorado State link. It looks like it will be a great viburnum. :-)

I started digging a spot for it over near my New Mexico Locust trees which are near my neighbor's house... It should be a nice contrasting foliage. Here's a photo.

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1 - Viburnums
2 - Spring blooming butterfly bush (started)
3 - Large shrub rose - Great Maiden's Blush or Mme Plantier
4 - Climbing roses - America and Capn. Sam Holland (planted)

Not sure what else will go in there yet... Gotta get the big stuff planted first.

Cheers,
Michelle

Hi Michelle,

ThatÂs interesting about the search! I use AOL, but AOL really just links you thru to google. I never use the quotesÂnever quite figured out when youÂre supposed to use single or double quotes, so I just donÂt use themÂand usually get pretty useful stuff. I googled the name on AOL (copied it from your heading) w/o quotes to get what I posted, then, after reading your post, I googled it on AOL with quotes and got pretty much the same stuff. Then I googled it actually on google, WITH quotes and got a couple of the same things, but a whole lot of GardenWeb links! That was VERY interesting! Then I googled it on google WITHOUT the quotes and didnÂt get the GW stuff, and got more useful stuff, but still some of them were a little bit weird. Of all four variations, AOL without quotes seemed to be the most useful. I always wondered if there was much difference in the different searches, and I guess there can be!

Is the house in the background the neighbors? And whatÂs the little building you can see the corner of in the picture? Is that the outhouse! Oh, wait! Even countryfolk have indoor plumbing by now, donÂt they! Just wasnÂt thinking! But, seriously, is that something youÂre trying to plant to hideÂlike a shedÂor not?

Are you trying to go xeric? And it looks like lots of sun, right? A couple of big "little" things you might want to think about are Russian sage (Perovskia), and some of the different AgastacheÂs. They both need room to spread out (as in flop, not as in take over the world!), and it looks like youÂve got it. IÂve got Agastache rupestris, anise or licorice hyssop, and I love itÂbut there are all different "flavors!" I just have a tiny garden, so mine need to be tied up to reign them in, but you could just let them go au naturale! And consider hardy pampas grass (Saccharum ravennae, a/k/a Erianthus r.), or a couple of the other ornamental grasses. TheyÂre wonderful!

Maybe Cnetter will see this and have something to add about your large shrub rose.

Stay cool,
Skybird

Hi,

Yes, the house in the background is the neighbors. The building in the corner is a shipping container that holds all my husband's extra business stuff. It's waaaay too big to hide!

AS for indoor plumbing, I had to laugh. I just went swimmin' in the pond and then hosed off outdoors and washed off with horse shampoo outside. We have indoor plumbing, we just save it for special occasions. :-) Marryin's, Barryin's and such. Ha ha.

The area will be mostly xeric (are roses considered xeric shrubs?) and will be on drip irrigation. It's funny - all the plants you mention, I am growing somewhere. I lost one of the hardy pampas grasses last year - not sure what happened there. The smaller one survived... I love the big grasses - currently am growing zebra grass, maiden hair, hardy pampas, and giant sacatoon. I saw one called Adagio (a miscanthus) at the nursery that I may have to pick up and plant in that area. I also love the agastaches - there are several at High Country that I'd like to add to my collection. One of these days... It might be a good place to grow more lavendars as well.

At this point, I don't know what to do around the buddleia. It's so tiny now, but is supposed to get so big. Maybe I can till around it this Fall and put in some sunflowers or something to fill in until it grows up? I would like to finish planting it and get it mulched this Fall to squelch the weeds.

Cheers,
Michelle

I'm thinking roses are not xeric, although Harison's comes darn close and the native Rosa arkansana probably is. But that's why we use drip irrigation, so they don't have to be xeric.

When giving some visitors a tour of the roses, I could not remember the name of Mme Plantier for anything. I just kept thinking "it's the other white with a button eye, not Mme Hardy. Mme Plantier has never gotten very big for me. I'd think Great Maiden's Blush would fill in better. Heck, go for Chloris and really eat up space, plus it's thornless!

Hi Michelle,

I'm growing Allegheny Viburnums, and mine have been excellent around deer. The deer don't come in my backyard much anymore, since more houses have been built around us, but when they did come, they never touched the viburnums. Mine are now about five feet tall and three to four feet wide. The large, leathery leaves try to hang on through winter, and my mother-in-law has one in a protected spot next to her house and it's actually almost evergreen there.

Although mine have probably outgrown the small drip irrigation emitters I have under them, they're still doing great, so perhaps they're not so thirsty.

I just thought of something -- I have some Burkwood Viburnums, too, and the neighbors horse was eating them pretty badly (until he fixed the fence). They're quite a bit different than Allegheny, with smaller leaves and perhaps a different taste, but it's possible horses may like your Alleghenys, too, even though the deer will leave them alone. Just a thought if it grows close to the fence.

Thanks Stevation! I'm glad to know the Burkwoods are supposed to have smaller leaves. I planted one last year, and thought the leaves were small because the plant was unhappy. :-) Do you have any idea how much water you give your Vibes per week on the drip system? The BWood is getting about 5-6 gallon per week. Does that sound about right?

Fortunately, the horses are well away from most of the landscape, and I have a VERY hot electric fence protecting my plants. Really, I need an 8' deerfence along the corral one of these days. When the fence goes off for some reason, the horses nibble the roses (and I wonder how horsemeat would taste). :-)

Cheers,
Michelle

Michelle,

My Burkwoods are getting 30 minutes of drip time twice a week, but I don't know how much the drippers are putting out per hour, because they're the adjustable ones that spray out in a little star-like pattern. It's probably 8-10 gallons per hour, but I'm not sure.

I have some Alleghenies getting the same water treatment as the Burkwoods, and I also have some in another spot that are watered by a punctured drip line that really doesn't put out much, since it's the end of a line that's really too long for the pressure it gets. So I put a sprinkler on them about once every two or three weeks and let it go for 4-5 hours. It's also watering a maple tree by them. These shrubs have about 3" of composted mulch over them, which probably holds quite a bit of moisture in the ground.

By the way, here's a photo from this week with my Alleghenies in it, next to the maple. Click the photo to see it bigger, and when you see it at Picasaweb, click the magnifying glass icon at upper right to see it full sized.

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Steve, that's a very pretty photo. I like the maple and the drifts of flowers.

Is that a riding arena?

Cheers,
Michelle

I forgot to mention, I sent mail the CSU Master Gardner program asking about water requirements of vibus. It sounds like you are giving them ~10 gallons per week. Is your base soil sandy? I had guessed in my clay soil that 5 per week might be enough.

Cheers,
Michelle

That is my backyard neighbor's riding arena, but it's also the paddock where his two horses spend most of their time. The other backyard neighbor to the right also has a horse, which was the one eating my viburnums until he fixed the fence. My house is one of those suburban subdivisions, but I was happy to get one of the lots with country people behind me. My backyard neighbor used to apologize about the smell of horse manure, but I think we've finally convinced him after six years, that we LOVE living by his horses!

Anyway, my base soil is rocky clay, but I had a lot of sandy loam topsoil dumped on top of it when we did the yard. So, it's a mixture, but my big shrubs are dug down in to the native soil pretty well. The shrubs in that photo above are the ones that don't get that much water except when I put the sprinkler by them every 2-3 weeks.