If you want an exceptional shrub near the house, consider a viburnum with fragrant flowers. Open the window on a spring day when one of these viburnums is in bloom and the fragrance will waft through the house.
Viburnums have two major types of flower heads: flat-topped clusters of flowers that resemble lacecap hydrangeas, and snowball types, with globe- or dome-shape flower clusters. Viburnum flowers range from creamy white to pink. The buds, often shaped like small nuts, are usually attractive as well.
The list of outstanding flowering viburnums is long (see the chart), but I want to mention just a few. Burkwood viburnum (V. x burkwoodii), semi-evergreen in a mild winter, is extremely fragrant and has many cultivars. 'Anne Russell', a compact shrub, has fragrant pink buds and red fall foliage. 'Mohawk', introduced by the late Dr. Donald Egolf of the National Arboretum, has a striking fragrance of spice as its reddish buds open into white snowballs.
Introduced by William Judd at the Arnold Arboretum in 1920, Judd viburnum (V. X juddii) is an extremely heavy flowering hybrid of V. bitchiuense. It has purple fall foliage with black fruit. Mayflower viburnum (V. carlesii), an old garden favorite, is popular for good reason. Also known as Korean spice viburnum, it has very fragrant pink buds that open to showy white snowball flowers. My favorite cultivars are 'Cayuga', a compact grower with pink buds, and'Compactum', which grows to only 3 feet tall and wide in 10 years.
The straight species form of European cranberry bush (V. opulus) is not as exciting as some viburnums, but several cultivars are exceptional. 'Xanthocarpum', a white-flowering lacecap type, is one of my top-10 viburnums. It has dark?green foliage and yellowish stems with persistent yellow fruit. 'Nanum', a dwarf cultivar, grows to only 2 feet high and 3 feet wide in 10 years. It's sometimes confused with 'Compactum', which gets much larger and flowers more than 'Nanum'. European snowball viburnum (V.o. 'Roseum') is a sterile viburnum. Its showy and profuse snowball flowers start out apple-green and change to white.
But the real floral show-stoppers are the doublefile viburnums (V. plicatum var. tomentosum). There are many fine cultivars in this group, though some of my favorites have little or no fragrance. They all have excellent orange-red foliage in autumn with red-black fruit. 'Mariesii' and 'Shasta' both have white lacecap flowers. 'Kern's Pink' has palepink snowball flowers and dark-green leaves with magenta edges.
Last but not least is V. sargentii 'Onondaga', a knock?out cultivar introduced by Dr. Egolf. Its maroon foliage emerges at the same time as fertile flowers that are a little darker maroon and set off by sterile florets in white with a tint of burgundy. This sensational shrub makes a great specimen or hedge.
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