Viburnums For Wildlife

• Nature News by Marlene A. Condon
• Apr 5, 2023  

Viburnums are very attractive shrubs often used for landscaping. The name comes from Latin for a plant known as the Wayfaring Tree or Viburnum lantana that is common in European waysides. Travelers — or wayfarers — would see many of these shrubs and hence the origin of the common name.

Viburnums species grow wild in the United States, and if you plant these American relatives in your yard, you’ll provide food for our native critters. Northern Cardinals, Brown Thrashers, American Robins, and Gray Catbirds are some of the kinds of birds that I’ve observed dining on fruits at my “Viburnum Café”, and White-tailed Deer and Eastern Cottontail Rabbits eat viburnum twigs.

The fruits of viburnums are fleshy and berry-like — known as “drupes” — and they come in a variety of colors. Depending upon the species or variety of the plant, its drupes will be red, yellow, blue, or black. The red- and yellow-fruiting forms make for a more-colorful shrub, but these fruits tend to be more acidic and thus not as eagerly consumed by wildlife. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The fruit often remains on these shrubs until late winter and early spring, a time of great hardship for many animals because newly developing seeds and fruits have not yet formed on most plants, and the previous year’s supply is running low.

Viburnum drupes may keep animals from starving or becoming malnourished, so it’s a good idea to grow species that produce red or yellow fruits as well as those

that provide blue or black ones. My viburnum hedge contains a variety of species and thus fruits of different colors ripen from early summer to the end of autumn, depending upon the species.

Gray Squirrels eat the red fruits of the viburnum known as Highbush or American Cranberry — Viburnum trilobum — that is not at all related to the cranberry plant that produces the fruits so popular with humans around Thanksgiving. Highbush Cranberry fruit is tart and edible, though, like the fruit in the grocery stores, and people sometimes make preserves out of it. The squirrels discard the skin and eat only the fleshy insides.

Most viburnums produce attractive clusters of white flowers that, depending upon the species, can be highly fragrant. These blooms lure many kinds of insects that help with pollination so fruits will form. Try to grow at least two of the same species of viburnum for cross-pollination and good fruit set — production of fruit. Viburnums do well in partial shade, but flower better in full sun and produce more fruit for wildlife.

Fragrant Viburnum, or Viburnum carlessi has sweet-smelling flowers that yield blue-black fruits in early summer. Arrowwood, or V. dentatum; Wither Rod, or V. cassinoides —also known as Wild Raisin; Nannyberry, or V. lentago — also known as Sweet Viburnum; Black Haw, or V. prunifolium; and Siebold Viburnum or V. sieboldi; offer fruit from the end of summer through the end of fall. Avoid “snowball” viburnums as they produce sterile flowers not capable of making fruit.

Viburnums — plants that serve wildlife and people wonderfully well!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com