Photo: Robert H. Mohlenbrock. USDA SCS — Public domain · source
Survives zone 3 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Genuinely edible raw, unlike most viburnums in this catalog — no cooking required and no known toxicity. Quality varies by individual plant: the best have thin, sweet, date- or prune-like flesh with a faint smoky note, while others lean bitter and astringent and are better suited to preserves. Best picked after the first frost, which sweetens it. Leaves have also been used for tea.
- Hardiness
- Zone 3–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Aug–Sept
- Mature size
- Shrub 2–4 m; containerable when young
- Light
- Full sun to partial
- Soil pH
- 5.5–7.0
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Eastern and central United States — Connecticut west to Michigan and Kansas, south to Georgia and Texas — along forest edges, streambanks, old fields and open woodland.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow — 30 cm a year or less
- Spacing
- 300 cm (118 in) apart — about 9 m² (97 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Opposite, ovate to elliptic 3–8 cm, finely toothed, glossy dark green with a reddish leaf stalk, turning deep red-purple in autumn. Plum-like in outline, which is what prunifolium records.
- Root system
- Shallow and fibrous, suckering from the base into a multi-stemmed clump, with low branches layering where they rest on the ground. Nothing deep, so it wants mulch and resents drought, but a lifted rooted sucker is a free plant.
- Fruit description
- Oval blue-black drupes to about 1.5 cm, in flat clusters, ripening September–October with a pale waxy bloom. Sweet and date- or prune-like at full ripeness — one of the genuinely good raw viburnums — over a single flat stone, and better still after a frost.
- Propagation
- Softwood cuttings in early summer, though they root slowly for a viburnum; seed has double dormancy and takes two years; suckers can be lifted with roots attached.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile but BETTER WITH A PARTNER — plant 2 cultivars
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.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Low feeding needs; tolerates poor, dry, and clay soils without supplemental fertilizer, though a spring compost mulch or balanced fertilizer can help young plants establish.
How it spreads. A suckering shrub that can form thickets as it matures, though it spreads at a slow to moderate rate.
Growing tips. No serious pest or disease problems. Flowers form on old wood, so prune immediately after flowering to avoid removing next year's blooms. Notably tolerant of black walnut (juglone) toxicity, a rare trait that makes it usable near black walnut trees.
Grow journal
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