Viburnum dilatatum Sealing Wax

Viburnum dilatatum 'Sealing Wax' is a compact, fruitful and colourful form of the linden leaf viburnum, also known as the large panicle viburnum. This deciduous bush offers a generous spring flowering with large fluffy white umbels, followed by an abundant and decorative red fruiting that is sought after by birds. Its foliage, which turns dark red in autumn, and its persistent fruits bring colour and life to the garden when the flowering season is gone. Hardy, undemanding, rural and colourful, this bush has its rightful place in an informal or flowering hedge.

Viburnum dilatatum 'Sealing Wax' belongs to the Viburnaceae family, just like its cousins the snowball viburnum and the guelder rose. Its ancestor, Viburnum dilatatum, is a beautiful bush native to China, Japan and Korea. In nature, it is found in clear forests and copse in the plains, always in sunny locations on slightly moist soils. Little known, this plant deserves its place in our gardens. It has produced some very interesting cultivars for our gardens.

'Sealing Wax' is a fairly fast-growing bush that reaches an average of 1.75m (6ft) in all directions at maturity. Its habit is bushy. Several stems emerge from its stump, giving rise to a highly branched vegetation. The bark is pubescent and brown with orange reflections when young, becoming smooth and grey over time. The deciduous leaves resemble those of the linden tree. Arranged alternately, they are simple, of variable size and shape, with toothed edges, but always very textured, traversed by prominent veins. In summer, their colour is dark green. In autumn, they turn from bronze to wine-red before falling quite late. The abundant and decorative flowering takes place in May-June. It takes the form of flat inflorescences over 10cm (4in) in diameter, composed of a multitude of small cream-white flowers with prominent stamens. After pollination by insects, the fruits form. These are small translucent and shiny berries that turn bright red when ripe in September.

Completely hardy, Viburnum dilatatum 'Sealing Wax' is content with good, deep and moist garden soil, even limestone or clay. This bush can be placed in isolation to attract attention in small gardens, but it excels in a rural hedge or shrub bed. It can be planted with numerous shrubs chosen for their autumn foliage (spindle tree, burning bush, smoke tree, oakleaf hydrangea, ninebark), their spring flowering (mock orange, flowering crab apples, lilacs, Canadian serviceberry), or for their pretty fruiting (chokeberries, beautyberries, cotoneasters, elderberries, snowberries, Chinese quince).