Photo: Dan Keck from Ohio, CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Arrowwood Viburnum
Viburnum dentatum
Also called southern arrowwood, roughish arrowwood, arrow-wood.
Blue-black berries nearly half fat by dry weight ripen from August for robins, bluebirds and catbirds, after flat white flower heads in May for the bees.
Wildlife valueShowy flowersFall colorScreeningDrought tolerantTolerates wet soilTolerates shadeSalt tolerant
- Type
- Shrub
- Mature height
- 5–10 ft
- USDA zones
- 2–8
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Sun
- Full · Part · Shade
- Soil moisture
- Dry · Average · Wet
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Arrowwood viburnum is a many-stemmed shrub of stream banks, moist woods and wood edges from Maine to Florida and west to Iowa and Texas, named for the straight young shoots Native Americans used as arrow shafts. Flat clusters of small white flowers open in May and June for native bees and bumble bees, and the spring azure, Henry's elfin and the hummingbird clearwing moth use viburnums as caterpillar hosts. The quarter-inch blue-black fruit ripens from August into November and measured 42 to 50 percent fat by dry weight in the Lake Ontario stopover studies, the fattest fruit tested there and the one migrants took first; bluebirds, robins, catbirds and flickers eat it at home. Glossy toothed leaves turn yellow to red in fall. Ideal for a hedge along a wet property line, the shrub layer under tall oaks, or a rain garden by the downspout.
It is the most soil-adaptable viburnum and hardy to zone 2, yet the garden-center plant is a compact cultivar such as Blue Muffin, grown from cuttings, and one clone alone sets little fruit because the flowers need pollen from a genetically different plant. Seedlings differ, so a group fruits every year from about the third year. It suckers into a broad clump and flowers on old wood, so prune right after bloom. Its one real enemy, the viburnum leaf beetle, prefers arrowwood and has reached western and central Maryland and northern Pennsylvania.
How to grow Arrowwood Viburnum
Arrowwood viburnum grows in full sun or part shade, or deeper shade with a thinner crop, zones 2 through 8. It prefers moist loam but takes clay, sand, flooding, drought once established and road salt. Plants reach 5 to 10 feet tall and as wide and sucker into a clump, so space them 6 feet apart for a hedge.
Plant dormant bare-root or potted shrubs from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, crown at the soil line, native soil back in, mulch ring clear of the stems. Pick fruit as soon as it turns blue-black, clean off the pulp and sow it a half inch deep in an outdoor bed under hardware cloth. Northern seed has double dormancy: the root grows in warm weather and the shoot waits for a winter, so most seedlings appear the second spring; a refrigerator alone will not do it, and stored seed is sown in spring to get a summer before its winter.
Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short. Deer browse the twigs, so cage young plants where deer are heavy. Prune right after flowering, since next year's flowers form on old wood; a leggy clump can be cut to the ground in late winter.
Growth is medium. Seedlings can fruit in their third year and a group crops every year after, but one plant or one cultivar alone sets little fruit, so plant three or more together. Watch for the viburnum leaf beetle: larvae skeletonize leaves from beneath in May and June, adults chew holes in summer and eggs sit in straight rows under the new twigs; prune out and bag those twigs after leaf drop, since two or three years of defoliation can kill a shrub.
Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.
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