Photo: Katja Schulz, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mapleleaf Viburnum

Viburnum acerifolium

Also called dockmackie, maple-leaved viburnum, mapleleaf arrowwood.

A small viburnum for shade, with maple-shaped leaves that turn pink, magenta and purple in fall and blue-black berries for birds.

Tolerates shadeFall colorWildlife valueDrought tolerantShowy flowersBears young

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 3–6 ft
USDA zones: 3–8
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full, Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: The forest understory, rich moist slopes, dry uplands and rocky ground
Native range: 30 states and the District of Columbia, north to Minnesota, south to Florida and west to Texas
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Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia
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Mapleleaf viburnum is a low, suckering shrub of eastern hardwood forests. Its three-lobed leaves look like a maple's, but tiny black dots cover their undersides. It is more at home in shade than most viburnums, and its fall color is excellent, reddish purple to magenta. Its dense stems give birds and small mammals cover for nesting and escape. It can be hard to find in nurseries. Grow it under tall trees in dry or moist woods, where it can spread into a loose colony.

Size, growth and what to expect

It grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. In one trial it grew slower than arrowwood and possumhaw viburnum. It makes a rounded shrub 3 to 6 feet tall and 2 to 6 feet wide.

Flat clusters of tiny white flowers, up to 3 inches across on long stalks, open from April to June. The berries ripen from red to blue-black from August to October and may hang on into winter. Grouse, wild turkeys, pheasants, songbirds, rabbits and deer eat them. The leaves feed spring azure caterpillars.

It grows wild from Quebec and Minnesota south to Florida and Texas. Its home is upland woods, ravine slopes and bluffs, and it is often the main shrub under beech and maple.

How to grow Mapleleaf Viburnum

Mapleleaf viburnum grows best in part shade, and it takes shade or sun. Deep shade cuts its fruit crop. It wants a well-drained, acid soil, moist or dry, and once rooted it rides out drought. Plant it 3 feet from a wall, and set plants 3 feet apart for a colony. 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 needs 6 to 17 months of warm, damp conditions and then 2 to 4 months of cold. Sow cleaned seed outdoors by May 1, half an inch deep, and seedlings come up the next spring. Seed sown in fall waits until the second spring.

Water weekly through the first summer in dry spells. Deer, rabbits and beavers eat the twigs and leaves, so cage young plants where deer are many. Prune as needed right after flowering. Pull the suckers if you want a single clump, or let them fill in under the trees.

A good crop of fruit needs a second plant that is not a clone of the first, so plant two or more seedlings. Seedlings can bear at 2 or 3 years. Watch for viburnum leaf beetle, to which it is susceptible. Aphids, scale and borers can turn up as well.

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

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