The Day of the Viburnum

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to meet Diana, Sharing Nature’s Garden, and Lori, Gardener of Good and Evil, at Diana’s beautiful home. Diana has created quite a luxurious and soothing sanctuary, despite her claims that she has so much yet to do. To accommodate some of those plans on her “to do” list, today she removed 3 Spring Bouquet Viburnums of significant size and age. She generously offered them to me, and I immediately agreed. I have already planted two Viburnums this year to be evergreen backgrounds for some blooming perennials, and could use Diana’s larger versions to fill in the spaces that mine haven’t grown into yet. So today became the day of the Viburnum Cake Walk.

Her gardening crew had spent the day today at her home, with quite a long list. At the end of the day, you would think they would be tired. But about 6 p.m., her three laborers showed up at my home, with 3 large shrubs with rootballs in the back of the pickup. They came like a swarm and with amazing speed, they…

Sweet Viburnum (Viburnum Odoratissum var. Awabuki)

1. (Lori, I put this picture in on purpose just for you, showing the tailend of my vehicle) moved my existing Sweet Viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum var. awabuki) to a different location in my yard to give it more room to spread out, then

Viburnum tinus Spring Bouquet

2. dug two large and deep holes for two of the new Viburnums (I believe they are Viburnum tinus Spring Bouquet) , which then created a need to…
3. move a Loropetulum that ended up being crowded out by the two new shrubs

(So I’m looking for a “before” picture (which of course I forgot to take) so you can see the dramatic difference of these luscious shrubs in my front bed. Imagine if you will, that the left side of this bed had no height at all, just a bunch of 2-3′ shrubs (Loropetulum, Agapanthus and a Yew that turned out to be dead at the roots – no wonder it wasn’t growing tall).

Now look! Instant bed filler! I feel like I’ve been on one of those gardening shows on HGTV where they show up and redo an entire lawn in a few hours – usually building a tiki bar for the homeowners with small children in the process).

Sandankwa Viburnum

4. removed my small Sandankwa Viburnum (Viburnum suspensum) from the back yard and planted it in an existing container, and then

5. planted the largest Spring Bouquet Viburnum in it’s place (a shrub about 4′ tall and 4′ wide). Note the poor wilted Althea in front of it; the reason for this Viburnum is to give a background for the Althea as it grows. It looks ugly in the winter when it loses all foliage, so it’s camouflage for that as well.

At the end of this flurry of activity, I looked at the clock and it was 6:23! All of that happened in about 20 minutes, with very little verbal communication as they speak little English, and I speak little Spanish.

And it appears that all has been given the Official Seal of Approval. Flash has smelled Diana’s dogs, Tanner and Dakota, and decided that they smell okay to him. All is well.

Thanks, Diana!