What's Blooming Connecticut: Doublefile Viburnum and American Cranberrybush

May is certainly a colorful month. More things blooming then I could possibly keep up with! One particular showy shrub candidate commonly seen would be the Doublefile viburnum, Viburnum plicatum. Two variants are identified in UCONN's College of Agriculture Health and Natural Resources database, Viburnum plicatum and Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum. They are described as identical in most respects, except "V. plicatum bears clusters of solely sterile flowers 2-3 weeks later than V. p. var. tomentosum."

Doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum) 5/29/15

The Doublefile Viburnum is certainly a handsome plant. It has very showy double rows of lace-cap flowers along characteristic horizontal branching. It stays neat and compact, growing up to 10 feet with a 15 foot spread and requires little care. One can easily understand why it is a common landscape planting in this area. It is, however, a deciduous shrub native to China and Japan and so I would like to share with everyone an intriguing native alternative also in bloom this past week, American Cranberrybush, Viburnum trilobum. Granted it is not as showy, however, if you are trying to develop a more natural landscape, this would be a great candidate.

American Cranberrybush is also a deciduous, rounded shrub with white lace cap flowers. The flowering is more sparse but the edible berries are loved by songbirds and can be used to make preserves. It has maple-like, lobed leaves which turn shades of red, yellow, and purple in in the fall adding color to the autumn landscape.

American Cranberrybush, Fine Gardening Magazine

Here is American Cranberrybush in bloom at the Highstead Arboretum in Redding. As you can see, it makes a nice woodland edge planting. The day I took this photo there were a pair of scarlet tanagers flitting about. They seemed quite pleased with the environment there! If you do not know about Highstead you might want to check out there website at http://highstead.net/about/history.shtml Thanks for reading!