{"id":300,"date":"2012-04-09T05:05:25","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T13:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=300"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:33","slug":"korean-spice-viburnum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/korean-spice-viburnum\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean Spice Viburnum"},"content":{"rendered":"

KOREAN SPICE
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>A few years ago I first caught wind–literally–of the fragrant flowers of Viburnum carlesii, also known as Korean spice viburnum.\u00a0 The scent is intensely sweet and pervasive, with just enough clove-like notes to keep it from being cloying.\u00a0 In the space of a few minutes, Korean spice viburnum became my latest heart’s desire and I put everything else on hold until I got one for the garden.\u00a0 I had no idea where I would put it, but such mundane concerns never stop me.\u00a0 Even if Viburnum carlesii had been the size of a mastodon and available only on Guam, I would have made every effort to find one.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fortunately, the shrub is relatively easy to obtain and never approaches mastodon size.\u00a0 My four-year old specimen is now about five feet tall and three feet wide.\u00a0 It would probably be bigger, but it was clobbered by a giant limb during a storm last fall, requiring the removal of a few damaged branches.\u00a0 Eventually it will become a fairly dense shrub, reaching five to eight feet high and four to eight feet wide.\u00a0 I may have to trim it a bit to keep it within the bounds of its garden home.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In March or April, depending on climate conditions, the shrub forms flower heads of tightly clustered dark pink buds.\u00a0 These open into three inch-wide snowballs composed of scores of five-petaled white blossoms.\u00a0 When my Viburnum carlesii is in bloom, I can smell it from at least six feet away.\u00a0 The fragrance intensity is similar to that of hyacinths–one bloom is enough to perfume an average room indoors.\u00a0 Two or more exude too much fragrance for a confined space.\u00a0 I position one cut blossom in the foyer of my house so I can smell it upstairs and down and visitors catch the scent the moment they walk in the front door.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lovely and fragrant as they are, the blooms do not last forever.\u00a0 When not in flower, the shrub is still good looking, getting by on its ovoid, two-inch long green leaves, which often turn dark red in the fall.\u00a0 The berries change from red to black late in the season, but are not as prominent or attractive as those on some other viburnums.
\n\u00a0The main reason to buy a Korean spice viburnum is the spring scent–but it is reason enough.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Viburnum carlesii was named for an Englishman, William Carles, a member of the British Consular Service and amateur plant collector in the late nineteenth century.\u00a0\u00a0 Maggie Campbell Culver, in her wonderful book, The Origin of Plants<\/em>, mentions that Carles collected plants in Korea in 1883-1885, which is when he must have obtained the plant that was named in his honor.\u00a0 The species was first described by English botanist William Botting Hemsley, who had a long career at the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, ending up as Keeper of the Herbarium and Library.\u00a0 He was the author or co-author of many plant books, including the ambitiously-titled, An<\/em> Enumeration of All the Plants Known from China Proper, Formosa, Hainan, Corea, the Luchu Archipelago, and the Island of Hong Kong; \u00a0<\/span><\/em>published in<\/span> 1887.\u00a0 Presumably this is where he first described Korean spice viburnum.
\n<\/span><\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anything that smells as good as this viburnum was bound to catch on fast, especially in late Victorian and Edwardian England where the nose-wrinkling odors of wet wool and rising damp sometimes predominated.\u00a0 By 1907, Viburnum carlesii was so popular that its portrait appeared in the well-respected Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.\u00a0 If it had not made its way to the United States by that time, it was soon to do so.\u00a0 My 1947 edition of the Wayside Gardens catalog refers to the shrub as “a great favorite.”\u009d\u00a0 Wayside’s \u00a0cultural information is still good today: “”\u00a6hardy, easily grown and does well in light shade, as well as in full sun.”\u009d\u00a0 Mine is very lightly shaded by a deciduous tree, so it gets lots of sun when it is forming flower buds in early spring.\u00a0 The modest shade probably keeps it a bit cool in the summer, which is a plus.\u00a0 I mulch it, but otherwise ignore it and it seems to thrive\u00a0
\n<\/font><\/font><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is no surprise the Korean spice viburnum attracts butterflies and other pollinating insects as readily as it attracts human admirers.\u00a0 Some sources say it is deer resistant, but I always take such phrases with a big grain of salt.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that a moderately hungry deer will probably eat other plants, like your daylilies or hostas, first.\u00a0
\n<\/font><\/font><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some large garden centers and specialty nurseries probably carry Viburnum carlesii.\u00a0 If you can’t find one nearby, the shrub is available from ForestFarm, 990 Tetherow Road, Williams, OR 97544, (541) 846-7269, <\/font><\/font>www.forestfarm.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Catalog $5.00.
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KOREAN SPICE \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few years ago I first caught wind–literally–of the fragrant flowers of Viburnum carlesii, also known as Korean spice viburnum.\u00a0 The scent is intensely sweet and pervasive, with just enough clove-like notes to keep it from being cloying.\u00a0 In the space of a few minutes, Korean spice viburnum became my latest … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}