How to Grow Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum)

Sometimes there comes along a plant that is just a gardener’s dream. Beautiful during the growing season, native, great for pollinators, great for birds, useful in the landscape, and overall easy to care for. I’ve got you hooked already don’t I? This plant would be a member of one of my favorite groups of plants: the viburnums. Viburnum dentatum aka Arrowwood viburnum is the plant of which I speak so let me tell you a little bit more about this beautiful garden shrub!

Growing Conditions for Arrowwood Viburnum

Arrowwood viburnum grows in full sun locations with well drained soil. It’s very tolerant of soils as it will grow in clay soil, sandy soil, and everything in between but ideally would be in a nice rich loamy soil. I have several of these viburnums on our property that are sited in sun and in shade and the ones in sunlight perform best. A full sun location will encourage more blooms and more berries.

The blue berries that form on arrowwood viburnums are excellent for wildlife. The birds devour the fruit within a couple days of ripening leaving only the stubby remains of the stem behind. That’s OK though because that is exactly why Viburnum dentatum needs to be planted. This viburnum is a United States native plant. As gardeners we need to make an effort to add native plants like viburnums in place of invasives. Invasive plants take up land space and displace plants that would be feeding and nourishing our wildlife. Every little bit helps.

Are the Berries Edible?

The blue berries are considered edible but there really isn’t enough flesh on the berries to make them worth eating. It’s mostly seed with a thin layer of fruit flesh and skin. But again, it’s great for the birds.

Arrowwood viburnums will grow in to fairly large shrubs if allowed. One of our plants grew to at least 15 ft tall before I had to cut it down. It grew too large for the location. A routine yearly pruning will take care of that problem well before it happens. Ours was the Northern Burgundy® variety and if you look at the chart below you can see it grew a little larger than predicted.

How Large Do Arrowwood Viburnums Grow?

Variety	Mature Size (ft)	Fall Color
Blue Muffin™	4-7	Bright blue berries, mild purple
Little Joe™	4-7	Purple-green
Synnestvedt	8-10	Yellow
Arrowwood Viburnum	8-10	Reddish-orange
Autumn Jazz™	8-10	Yellow, orange, red, purple
Northern Burgundy®	10-12	Burgundy-red
Allegheny®	10-12	Reddish-purple

How to Propagate Arrowwood Viburnum

Arrowwood viburnum is very easy to propagate and there are several really cool ways to do it.

Division

The stems sucker quite a lot at the base and it is very easy to simply dig out a rooted section of the tree and divide it from the main plant. Be sure to cut back the stems a little if the root system isn’t very large. This will help the roots balance out to support the main plant until they form more roots.

Layering

Arrowwood viburnum has many flexible young stems that you can bend over and pin the soil. If you shave a little of the bark layer off just under a node and down to the cambium layer then pin that part under the soil the plant will form roots at that location underneath a node.

Cuttings

My favorite way to make more arrowwood viburnums is through cuttings. Cuttings root extremely well and you can do many cuttings of this plant at a time. A 4 to 6 inch cutting taken with a node at the bottom should root in less than 4 weeks. I usually will use a little rooting hormone on the cut end then I will place the cutting in a rooting medium like sand. Other mediums work well too, just use your favorite.

Remove all the leaves except for 1 or 2 at the top of the cutting to reduce water loss due to transpiration and keep the cuttings in a shady location. Don’t let the cuttings dry out. You can use a misting system if you want to but it isn’t necessary as long as you pay attention to your cuttings.

I wrote more on propagating arrowwood viburnums in this post: Rooting Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum Propagation)

I’ve used all of these methods for propagating viburnums but stem cuttings are my favorite. I did a little video on the dividing option recently. In this case an arrowwood had self layered so this was a little like dividing and layering at the same time. You can see that below. Content continues below the video.

Arrowwood Viburnum Fall Color

Arrowood viburnum does produce some really nice fall colors. The color spectrum seems to range from yellow to orange with a bit of reddish purple through in for fun. Below is the Northern Burgundy® which is also the same plant as Viburnum dentatum ‘Morton’. The Northern Burgundy® is a trademark name but they are the exact same plant.

Common Problems with Arrowwood Viburnum

Arrowwood viburnum is very trouble free (in my experience at least) however viburnums can suffer from a variety problems. Most of these issues are easily handled with a treatment regime. Check out the table below for some common viburnum problems.

Issue	Symptoms	Cause	Management
Fungal diseases	Brown, reddish, or gray spots on leaves	Various fungi	Rarely serious, mostly aesthetic – Fungicide if severe
	Yellow patches on upper leaf surface, purplish mold on underside	Downy mildew (favors cool, wet conditions)	Pruning affected leaves – Fungicide if severe
	White, powdery growth on leaves	Powdery mildew	Rarely serious, mostly aesthetic – Fungicide if severe
	Dead areas (cankers) on branches	Botryosphaeria dieback and canker (affects stressed plants)	Prune affected branches – Improve plant health
Pests	Leaf curling and distortion	Aphids	Insecticidal soap or neem oil
	Bumps on leaves	Scales	Insecticidal soap or neem oil
	Foliage and flower damage	Japanese beetles	Handpicking – Insecticidal soap or neem oil
Abiotic problems	Wilting leaves	Excessive drought or water stress	Adjust watering according to needs
	Brown patches on leaves	Too much sun exposure	Provide shade if necessary
	Yellowing leaves	Nutrient deficiency (iron)	Soil test and apply appropriate fertilizer

Japanese beetles rarely did much damage to my viburnums. They seemed to prefer our grape vines and roses. I never noticed aphids or any of the other issues. That isn’t to say it isn’t possible for a plant to have these problems but I suspect they are extremely rare.

The Benefit to Wildlife

As I mentioned earlier arrowwood viburnum is great for birds who absolute feast on it’s berries but it also provided support for other animals. It makes a great nesting plant and shelter for animals. Red Admiral, Eastern Comma and Question Mark butterflies are all attracted to arrowwood viburnums and serves as a food source for spring azure butterfly and hummingbird moths. (according to The Arbor Day Foundation).

Arrowwood viburnum is native to the eastern United States from Maine to northern Florida and west toward Texas.

Caring for Arrowwood Viburnum

Monitor

To care for your arrowwood viburnum monitor it routinely for pest problems. Deer may occasionally browse on it but it’s a tough enough plant to handle it after it’s been established.

Pruning Arrowwood Viburnum

Prune back the viburnum when it begins to get too large. Arrowwood viburnum forms flower buds on the summer for the following spring. The best time to prune is after flowering. I would recommend to keep it a light corrective pruning and do it routinely after blooming each year. Avoid pruning in the fall as that can stimulate growth which you don’t want just before the fall freeze arrives.

I would also recommend taking those prunings and turn them into new plants, but that’s me, the plant propagation addict.

I hope I’ve convinced you that arrowwood viburnum is a good plant to have in your garden if you have the space. It can form a large shrub and I wouldn’t recommend it too close to a house foundation but as a deciduous privacy screen it would be amazing. The glossy leaves would be gorgeous in that screen.

I really enjoy our viburnums and have several planted in the garden. Feel free to check those out too and decide which ones to add to your garden. Also to read more on Viburnum read this article: Growing Viburnums in the Home Garden

• ‘Shasta’ Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum
• ‘Brandywine’ Viburnum nudum
• ‘Onondaga’ Viburnum sargentii
• Viburnum plicatum ‘Sterile’ – Japanese Snowball Viburnum