Posts Tagged Viburnum nudum
Welcome, Autumn!
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on September 22, 2013
Summer left as sweetly as she arrived this year, bringing needed rain overnight. We woke to sunshine, deep blue, cloudless skies, and a steady breeze bringing in cool, dry, autumnal air. If only every summer could be as kind as this one was to us. Oh, she wasn’t perfect. Her excessive June rains put fungal diseases into overdrive. My tomatoes were blighted beyond redemption by late July.
But the peppers remain productive. My sweet Italian Bull’s Horn variety, Carmen, is overwhelming us with scarlet fruits.
Carmens remain productive.
And the one purple cayenne plant I added (free seed — who can resist?) is still producing zillions of fruits. They start out deep purple, then pale to lilac, then suddenly go deep, hot scarlet.
First, the cayennes are purple.
Then, they go hot!
The vegetable garden is mostly flowers now. The nasturtiums went bonkers, thanks to Summer’s rains. They now own two full rows where the beans and tomatoes once grew.
Never have the nasturtiums displayed such prolonged enthusiasm.
And they’ll be popping up everywhere next year without any help from me. Their fat, curly seed pods are verging on ubiquitous.
Clearly, the nasturtiums have plans for next year.
Reproductive efforts were evident everywhere in my yard today, as I took my Farewell-to-Summer stroll around the yard this morning. Some plants are just now showing off ripe fruits.
Cornus florida berries won’t last long; my pileated woodpeckers adore them.
Beautyberry always lives up to her name about now.
Viburnum nudum fruits go pink, then deep purple, but you don’t see many purples, thanks to hungry birds.
Hearts-a-burstin’ is exploding with strawberry-like fruits.
Some plants only produced a few fruits this year. I think the rains actually inhibited pollination in a few instances. Case in point: my native spicebushes (Lindera benzoin). They produced few berries, and as soon as those ripened, they were devoured. I found one lone exception today, hiding deep inside the center of a plant whose leaves are just beginning to turn their characteristic autumn gold.
One lonely spicebush berry hidden deep within the shrub.
Most of my holly species are heavy with unripe berries, but one is already showing off. A deciduous species, Ilex verticillata, is loaded with crimson fruits. In another month, its leaves will drop, but the berries will likely linger well into late fall, even January some years. The fruits are usually a meal-of-last-resort for the feathered inhabitants of my yard.
Ilex verticillata berries ornament a still-green shrub.
Fruits of my deciduous Asian dogwood (Cornus kousa) are just turning red, looking quite like Christmas ornaments.
Cornus kousa fruits.
The wet summer was a boon to the legions of lichens that adorn the trees in my yard. Lichens are not only beautiful and essential to the transformation of dead plant material into soil. I’m told they also signal good air quality; lichens won’t grow in smog-filled skies.
An array of lichens adorning a fallen dead tree branch.
Even if my calendar didn’t tell me that today was the Autumnal Equinox, I would have known it was imminent. My Seven-Son Flower Tree never fails to signal Summer’s departure as it transforms its clusters of sweet, white flowers into clusters of purple-red sepals that consistently fool hummingbirds into thinking nectar hides within their embrace.
Purple-red sepals signal Autumn’s arrival, even as a few white flower clusters persist.
Rain-softened ground today made weed-pulling almost enjoyable; cool breezes prevented early autumn sunshine from overheating me as I tackled yet another area of my yard overwhelmed by the invaders that Summer’s rains invited willy nilly everywhere in my yard.
Other inhabitants were not entirely happy with my Autumn clean-up activities. A large earth-colored American toad hopped frantically between my legs when I removed its weedy camouflage. Numerous ant colonies bustled about carrying pearl-colored eggs to safety when I disturbed their weed-covered homes. And an Asian Praying Mantis female glowered at me with unblinking emerald eyes from her perch atop a pink-flowering abelia.
Her work is nearly done, though. I spotted freshly laid mantis egg masses firmly attached to the branches of a nearby shrub. Perhaps she was cranky from all that egg-laying; perhaps the cooling breeze told her that her time was nearly over.
Autumn’s arrival signals many endings, it’s true. But abundant fruits, well-hidden egg masses, slumbering salamanders, toads, anoles, skinks, and myriad snakes ensure that Spring’s beginnings are just a winter’s sleep away. Now is the time to tidy up our yards, tuck in a few new shrubs and trees, and settle indoors for some well-earned rest. Now is the time to dream of coming snows and next spring’s gardens.
Happy Autumn, everyone!
The lowdown on Haws
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on October 16, 2011
Possumhaw Viburnum fruits
I added Possumhaw Viburnum (Viburnum nudum) to the shady inner edge of my floodplain about 15 years ago. What started out as a small shrub is now a small tree — about 12 feet tall and equally wide. The branches are a bit floppy; it’s not a shrub/tree to plant in formal areas. But it does a fine job of filling in a shady spot in my landscape.
This southeastern US native occurs naturally along streams, swamp edges, and the moist slopes of uplands, which is why I sited my specimen in a similar location. I planted this native to help fill in my once-sparse forest understory layer and to provide food for wildlife. It fulfills both these goals admirably and offers landscape value too. Summer leaves are glossy, reflecting light beneath the shade of a large red maple. Its fall color is a deep maroon that develops after most other deciduous trees have lost their leaves for the season. The flowers and fruits are also quite eye-catching.
Typical viburnum white flat-topped flower clusters glow softly in the growing shade of late spring, attracting myriad insect visitors. These busy pollinators ensure excellent fruit set. Individual fruits start out pinkish-red and mature to a dark blue. Here’s a close-up of some fruit clusters on my specimen:
Fruits start out pink and ripen to blue
You may notice that the above shot doesn’t show many blue fruits. I think that’s because the birds are eating them as soon as they are fully ripe. All the fruit-eating birds — from robins to cardinals to woodpeckers (oh yes, they love fruits) argue over who gets to devour the blue drupes. The common name — Possumhaw — refers to the fact that possums and raccoons also enjoy these fruits. Deer will browse the entire plant — mine is now tall enough that they can’t reach it all.
That common name — Possumhaw — is shared by another native shrub of our moist spots. It’s a completely different species — a deciduous holly, also commonly called Winterberry, for the fact that its bright red berries linger on the branches after the leaves fall. The fruits of this holly (Ilex decidua) are not as enthusiastically devoured as its same-named viburnum counterpart, but they do eventually get eaten as winter progresses.
Some folks call Winterberry Possumhaw Holly to distinguish it from Possumhaw Viburnum, but you’ll also find both shrubs/trees referred to simply as Possumhaw. The “possum” front end of the name seems likely to refer to one of the critters that likes to eat it, but I found myself wondering about the “haw” part.
It seemed likely that “haw” referred to the fruit, but that confused me because the hollies produce individual berry-like drupes that ripen from green to red, and the viburnum in question produces clusters of berry-like drupes that ripen from reddish-pink to blue. How can these both be haws?
A quick survey via my favorite search engine provided an answer. Apparently, the English colonists who settled this region weren’t interested in finer botanical distinctions. If an animal or plant reminded them of one from back home in England, they tended to call it by that old familiar name. That’s how our American Robin got its name, even though it’s not remotely kin (nor that physically similar) to the European Robin.
And it’s also why several bushes with red fruits — at any stage of their ripening process — got called Haws. You see, the European Hawthorn they grew up with produces red fruits they called Haws, so anything in the New World of about the same size and character with red fruits was called a Haw. As for the “Possum” part of Possumhaw, I imagine that the colonists either observed these creatures eating the fruits, or found them inside their stomachs when they prepared the possums for cooking.
All this is a long-winded way of telling you that common names of plants can be colorful, but to be sure you’re getting what you want, stick with their botanical names. If you’ve got a shady, somewhat moist spot for an attractive understory shrub/small tree that will feed wildlife, put Viburnum nudum on your list of options. It’s guaranteed to enhance your landscape and draw the attention of human, four-legged, and winged admirers.
Piedmont Gardener 