Viburnums are such a varied and important genus of flowering, fruit-bearing shrubs that few generalizations apply to all of them. Various types grow from 2 to over 20 feet in height, and are thus valuable for many garden uses such as shrub borders, informal hedges, screen plantings, plantings near a house or as single plants that are grown to stand by themselves. Like hydrangeas, viburnums have two kinds of blossoms- flowers, incapable of producing berries, and fertile ones, which can produce berries. Unlike hydrangeas, the fertile flowers are usually as attractive as the sterile ones. Viburnums offer an added attraction- handsome fruit of fertile flowers is appealing to birds and that of some species makes delicious jellies and jams.
Flowers are usually white or pink and many are delightfully fragrant.
The foliage of most viburnums turns some shade of red in the fall. Berries change from red to black as they ripen in midsummer. Its berries change from green to pink, then from red to blue before becoming black when they ripen in late summer. It is easy to see why Indians used the stems of arrowwood as shafts for their arrows. Mature plants may send curving branches 10 to 15 feet high, but always have many straight young stems coming up from ground level.