There’s a large shrub just beyond my garden which has been flowering it’s socks off for weeks, cheering me up each time I peer out into the gloom of winter mornings, blowing my tea.
Holding its branches of pompoms of candy pink blooms to the skies like a cheerleader, this is a viburnum; ‘Charles Lamont’. Flowering from Autumn through to Spring, with scented blooms, it’s a brilliantly hard-working cheerleader at that.
Its woody winter frame allows light to its base, which means you can underplant with pleasingly-contrasting purples of crocus for a two-tone spring hit.
Later ridged leaves of deep green will unfurl to provide a more sober but handsome backdrop to the rest of the border. The new stems are a bright claret. And there are the shiny blue-black berries.
This viburnum can grow pretty big, but the mature specimen over my fence is kept at about 2 metres high and 1.5m wide with a trim each year.
Alternative viburnums:
- If you can’t find ‘Charles Lamont’ go for V. x bodnantense ‘Dawn’; the same other than the pink fades to white over time
- V. x burkwoodii has wonderfully scented white flowers in late Spring, mature it can stay pretty much evergreen
- V. tinus is very hapy in a shady spot, with dense green foliage
- V. dentatum is deciduous and has great autumn colour