I can only speak for the native ones. The most upright ones in my area are V. rufidulum and V. prunifolium. They can easily be considered small trees. As for berries, the V. dentatum ones disappear the fastest but the V. nudum ones are popular too. V. acerifolium ones stay on the longest ... but I just saw a robin snacking on them the other day.

Thanks for the replies! It has gotten much worse since I posted last week. All of the leaves are dry and crispy. Is it too late to try to do something? It is still in the 100s here, but looks like a cooling trend will be starting this weekend (lower 90s woohoo!). Would it be a good idea or bad idea to fertilize now? I dont have a suitable place to plant it in the ground right now. I'm currently in a townhouse, and I only have a couple of narrow flowerbeds in the back for planting space. My thought was that I would buy a house in the next two years and raise the tree in a container until then.

I don't know about Dallas but there are several places in the Houston area that sell natives for reasonable prices. I just purchased a Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum in The Woodlands at Pineywoods Nursery for $6.00 (1 gal. but he has other sizes). Here's Jason's web site: [HYPERLINK@www.thepineywoodsnursery.com] Jason's normally there on Sat. (also Tues & Thurs. I believe) but you might want to call. He has lots of other hard to find native trees and plants and can often get them if he doesn't have them. Arbor Gate in Tomball, TX is another place you can find some natives. Regards! Bill

sall20, Thanks for the photos. Appreciate seeing the branch angles before leaf-out. Most photos seem to show them either in flower or in fall color when the structure is obscured. A very nice RBV! Have been planning to eventually limb ours up in the 4 to 6ft range. Think you're probably right that the 4ft spacing may not be enough for the limbs to clear a 6 ft fence if they're left on below 5ft or so. Will see if there is any more space left once we move the existing stuff around a bit; limbing up to at least 5 ft should be okay for us, but would be nice to have the flexibility to decide this later. Worst case... suppose we can always cut notches in the fence as our neighbors have done for their photinia branches. :-)