Photo: Daniel Dumais, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Hobblebush

Viburnum lantanoides

Also called witch-hobble, moosewood, alder-leaved viburnum, tangle legs, Viburnum alnifolium.

A shade shrub of cool northern woods with lacy white flower heads in spring and big heart-shaped leaves that turn bronze-red and purple in fall.

Showy flowersFall colorWildlife valueTolerates shade

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 3–12 ft
USDA zones: 3–6
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: The forest understory, the Appalachians, rich moist slopes and stream banks
Native range: 17 states, north to Maine, south to Georgia and west to Tennessee
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Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia
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Hobblebush is the viburnum of cool northern and mountain forests, a sprawling shrub whose low branches root where they touch the ground and trip walkers. It differs from the nannyberry, arrowwood and blackhaw we grow. Its leaves are about twice as long, its winter buds have no scales, and each flower head wears a ring of big sterile flowers. Only one other American viburnum carries these lacecap heads. It is widespread in the Northeast but rare at the edges of its range. Kentucky and New Jersey list it as endangered, Ohio lists it as threatened, and it is gone from Georgia. Plant it under tall trees on a cool, moist slope or beside a shaded stream, where it can sprawl and root into a thicket.

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator uses the medium rate of our other viburnums, about a foot and a half a year. It makes an open, straggling shrub 3 to 12 feet tall and 6 to 12 feet wide. Its leaves run 4 to 8 inches long.

Flat heads 3 to 5 inches across open in May and June, with a ring of showy sterile flowers around small fertile ones. That ring nearly doubled fruit set in a field study, by drawing the andrenid bees and flies that carry pollen. The fruits ripen from red to purple-black in August and September, each a third of an inch long. Gamebirds, songbirds and mammals eat them, and it is a host plant of the spring azure butterfly.

It grows in cool, moist forests from the Great Smoky Mountains north to Quebec and Cape Breton Island. Its home is the forest understory, along with stream banks and swamps.

How to grow Hobblebush

Hobblebush grows in part shade or shade, like the forest floor it comes from. Deep shade cuts its fruit crop, so give it some light through the canopy. It wants a moist soil, acid to neutral and rich in leaf litter. A sandy or gravelly loam suits it, and it takes ground that is wet at times. Set plants 6 feet apart and keep them 6 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and mulch with leaves, clear of the stems. Seed has a double dormancy, so keep cleaned seed damp at room temperature for 12 weeks and then in the refrigerator for 12 more. Sow it half an inch deep once the cold is done. Sown outdoors in fall, most of it waits until the second spring.

Water weekly through the first two summers, and keep a mulch of leaves over the roots. Deer and rabbits browse the twigs and leaves, so cage young plants where they are common. It needs little pruning. Cut out dead stems in late winter, and let low branches root if you want a thicket.

Hobblebush sets few fruits with its own pollen and far more with pollen from another plant, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents for fruit. Watch for viburnum leaf beetle, to which it is moderately susceptible.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (11)