Mapleleaf viburnum

Photo: Jomegat — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 3 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Fruit is thin-fleshed and mostly seed — edible and historically eaten by Indigenous peoples and early settlers, but sparse and not a substantial food source; grown more for understory cover and fall color than for the crop.

Hardiness

Zone 3–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept–Oct

Mature size

1–2 m tall and wide

Light

Part to full shade

Soil pH

5.0–7.0 (acidic to neutral)

Environment

Temperate, understory

Native range

Eastern North America, from southern Canada to Georgia and west to Minnesota — dry to moist woods and forest understory.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

3–4 yrs

Growth speed

Slow to moderate

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Three-lobed, maple-like, 6–12 cm, coarsely toothed

Root system

Shallow, spreading, suckering to form colonies

Fruit description

Small blue-black drupes, ~8 mm, thin flesh over a flattened stone

Propagation

Softwood cuttings in early summer, seed (double dormancy, often takes two years to germinate), or division of suckers.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated (bees, flies) and self-fertile.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.