A few years ago I purchased a little shrub in a box from Wal-Mart (I know, I know...) and it was labelled "Snowball Viburnum". I was expecting Viburnum opulus 'sterile' with the tri-lobed leaves and the big sterile round snowball. But that's not it. The leaves are totally different. Last year a friend gave me V. plicatum var. Tomentosum 'Shasta' and guess what...these two shrubs have the same leaves but a totally different habit. The Shasta is sprawling and horizontal. My shrub is vertical. No flowers yet. My mystery shrub appears to be V. plicatum, going by leaves. I'm suspecting that since Wal-Mart isn't going to spring for a named variety, I probably have the species. This is an assumption. I found one reference where the species (V. plicatum) has a sterile flowerhead...giving a full snowball...and goes by the common name of Japanese Snowball. Which correlates to Wal-Mart's description of Snowball Viburnum. So now I'm wondering what I really have. Googling has given me a huge mess where there are many pics badly labelled. When I google "Doublefile Viburnum" I get plenty of pic...most with a lacecap flower. Most seem to reference the tomentosum variety. I've even seen at least one site with V. plicatum having the leaves of V. opulus. (And I wonder about the difference between V. opulus and V. trilobum and Highbush Cranberry vs Snowball Bush and if both are the same species with one just being sterile???) The ultimate practical reason I want to know this (aside from curiosity) is that I need to know where to move my mystery Viburnum. It's so vertical right now I suspect it will stay that way. It's about 5ft tall and 3ft wide. But everything I read about V. plicatum tells me it's supposed to be wide and horizontal. So...I'm totally confused and would love it if someone could shed some light on this. Thank you!
There are some forms of Viburnum plicatum that are more upright than horizontal- Watanabe/Summer Snowflake are tomentosum types that are more upright. I have seen V. plicatum Newport Dwarf be taller than wide as well. My experience with straight V. plicatum is only with young plants, but they certainly didn't seem as spreading as Shasta, Shoshoni, and Mariesii- the doublefiles that are grown for their horizontal branching. I also once grew a V. plicatum Pink Beauty (not very pink!) and it was very upright, much like your shrub in habit.
Ginger Blue- Try, maybe, Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum ‘Popcorn’. This large doublefile has ball-shaped flowers. Different sources list different heights 6-10 ft.
Thanks guys for your input. I think I need to plan on this shrub getting wide, regardless of its type. And once the blooms show I'm sure I'll know more. I've done some more reading on Viburnums, and hopefully understand the nomenclature better. Does anyone know of a good site online that has reliable info that can help me figure these out?
Ginger Blue- Hope this site is useful, there are descriptions and pics for many of the species and some varieties. http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ldplants/3plants.htm#waldsteinia Scroll down until you get to viburnum.
Tennyo, THANK YOU for a wonderful site. That one puts it all together. It's a great resource I'd not run into before.
