Black haw viburnum puts on year-round show
If your New Year’s resolutions include landscaping with more native plants, consider
commonly called black haw viburnum, a shrub or small tree that can be enjoyed the entire year through.
In mid- to late spring, clusters of quarter-inch, creamy-white flowers produce a pleasant smell. Each flower is replaced by a fleshy, thin-skinned berrylike fruit with a single seed. During the summer, these ripen to blueblack and hang in clusters.
In fall, the leaves turn shades of red, orange, yellow or purple, or a mixture.
In winter, any leftover fruit, also called drupes, shrivel and look like raisins, giving the plant another common name — Indian Raisin. The leafless stems look like a fish skeleton, and the small irregular plates on its bark, reminiscent of alligator hide, can be seen.
Black haw’s native range is the eastern United States, west to Kansas and south to Georgia and Texas. In Ohio, it’s the most widely distributed of the four viburnums
native to the state.
Moist woods, thickets and streambanks make up its native habitat, so the plant is a good alternative to invasive honeysuckle and barberry often found in those areas.
As a multi-stemmed shrub, black haw will grow 12 to 15 feet tall and 6 to 12 feet wide. Pruned into a multi- or single-trunked tree, it can reach 30 feet.
Its oval leaves are 3 to 5 inches across, finely toothed and a glossy dark green. The bark is reddish-brown and very rough on old stems.
The drupes become edible to humans and wildlife after the first frost. They can be eaten fresh and used to make jam, juice and wine.
Animals that eat the drupes include cardinals, robins, wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks and mice. Deer and beavers like the twigs and bark. Black haw provides nectar for many bee and fly species and is a host plant for the spring azure butterfly caterpillar.
Growing requirements
■ Hardiness: Zones 3-9
■ Sun: full sun to part shade; tolerates dense shade
■ Water: dry to medium
■ Soil: prefers moist, welldrained; adaptable to clay, poor, compacted, dry; tolerates black walnut
■ Maintenance: low; pruning too late in season can result in loss of blooms/drupes
■ Propagation: seed; semihardwood cuttings; suckers ■ Pests and diseases: none serious
Common cultivars
These are popular versions that are more upright and compact. Growers seeking a native-only garden should note they are genetically different from the wild originals.
■ Summer Magic: new leaves are red and change to pink then mauve green; their fall color is yellow to red
■ Forest Rouge (‘McKrouge’): a pretty maroon fall color
■ Ovation: new leaves are rosy-pink and change to celery green; rich burgundy fall color
Medicinal uses
Native Americans, Shakers and others have used the bark to treat gynecological conditions. Dr. Hayden’s Viburnum Compound, an alcohol-based tincture, became popular during Prohibition. Black haw also has been used to treat diarrhea, asthma, heart palpitations and digestive problems.
Fun fact
James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), known as the “Hoosier Poet,” wrote of black haws in his poem “Time of Clearer Twitterings,” published in the book “Rhymes of Childhood”: