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Sunday - October 19, 2008

From: Tallmadge, OH
Region: Mid-Atlantic
Topic: Propagation
Title: Planting a pair of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for fruiting
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

I'd like to plant a pair of witherod viburnums to improve their fruiting. Can I get the cross-pollination with a v. cassanoides together with a v. nudum? How close together do they need to be? (Can they be the width of a driveway apart?) Thank you.

ANSWER:

We have run into this problem before, please see this previous answer where it's addressed much better than we could. Because it would be very unlikely you would be able to purchase a Viburnum that was not the result of cloning, you will definitely have to go to a different species for the "other" plant. We saw another reference on these plants saying it was best to cross one sub-species of nudum with a different nudum. Following that reasoning, Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides should work with either Viburnum nudum or Viburnum nudum var. nudum. Now, here's the tricky part-viburnums are monoecious, meaning that there are both male and female flowers on each bush. However, since viburnums purchased in nurseries are almost inevitably clones, or plants propagated from cuttings, they have trouble self-pollinating. For whatever reason, they will resist being pollinated by another clone of the same species. We're going to suggest that you go to our Native Suppliers List, and type your town and state in the "Enter Search Location" box. This will give you the names of native plant nurseries in your general area. They all have contact information of some sort, and we would advise you to contact them first before you go driving around and see what they have in stock, and if they're confident that they have correctly labeled stock. We're in hopes that the native plant suppliers will be more likely to be aware of these things than the large retail nurseries. Here is a list of the various species or sub-species of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides (withe-rod). Hopefully, you can find a different cultivar to plant with your viburnums in order to get flowers and berries.

Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides (withe-rod) - pictures

Viburnum nudum (possumhaw) - pictures