Looking spectacular in the garden this week is our specimen of the deciduous Viburnum sieboldii. This lovely plant from Central and Southern Japan, is named in honor of German physician/naturalist Phillip Franz von Siebold (1796-1866). My early attempts at growing this at JLBG were all failures, since this species isn’t known to be very heat tolerant. It wasn’t until I was visiting American Hosta Society founder, Alex Summers’s Delaware garden in 1997 did I decide to try again. Alex had made a selection that had thrived for him through some hot summers, and was willing to share cuttings. We subsequently named this cultivar, Viburnum ‘Honeysong’, after Alex’s garden.
The plant below is one we grew from those cuttings. We have discovered that it prefers soil that is on the moist side, which helps it cope better with the heat. While there are reports of it becoming weedy in parts of the Northeast, that certainly hasn’t been an issue in our 27 years of growing this in central NC. Typically, most viburnums fruit best when there is another clone, so am not sure what other viburnum species might be accounting for the great fruit set.
