Winter viburnum

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

Low

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Worked by honey bees and winter bumblebee queens on mild days. Its long staggered flowering means it is available across more of the winter than any single-flush plant.

A short tubular flower with nectar within reach of a honey bee.

Worth knowing

Moderate nectar and little pollen, delivered across the longest winter flowering window of any common garden shrub.

Flowering

In flower

November to March (northern hemisphere)

Flowers in flushes through the whole winter, opening after each mild spell rather than in a single continuous bloom.

When nectar flows

Modest nectar in short tubular flowers, available whenever it is warm enough for a bee to fly.

Year-to-year variation

Dependable, and never a crop.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade, any reasonable soil. Fully hardy and undemanding.

Size

2-3 m.

Native range

A garden hybrid of two Chinese species, Viburnum farreri and V. grandiflorum.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow

• Site it where the scent will be caught on a path, and behind something else — it is a plain shrub in summer.
• Prune after the last winter flush, and only lightly; it flowers on older wood.
• The related Viburnum tinus flowers through the same window, is evergreen, and is equally good for winter bees.

What it looks like

An upright twiggy deciduous shrub carrying dense rounded clusters of small tubular pink flowers, deeper in bud, on bare wood through the winter.