The Three Viburnums

The erratic temperatures over the winter has caused an unusual event.  All three of the different viburnums are blooming at the same time.  The two in the picture on the left often bloom around the same time in the spring.  Of the two, the one in the front, which is a Viburnum x burkwoodi Conoy, opens it flowers slightly earlier than the one in the background. 

That is consistent this year. When you look at this close-up view of the flowers, you will see almost all of the individual flowers are fully open, with only a few still in bud.  The bush of the Conoy, as visible above, is actually carefully shaped into a rounded, dense form.  It can be maintained in this shape because the twigs and the leaves are smaller and respond to pruning by branching into multiple growing points.  This creates a soft surface that is covered with the clusters.

The Viburnum x pragense, or Prague Viburnum, blooms a week to ten days later.  This can be seen in the close-up of its flower cluster which is still mostly at the bud stage.  The soft pink color on the outside of the petals is delightful, and the clusters are much denser and compact,the size of a softball.  The texture of the shrub is much more linear and open.  Maybe it is the way I have been training it because I want a thin and tall form, but it seems vertical in all aspects, with strong trunks.  That slim profile provides a detail to the foreground to the big view, without blocking that view.

The third viburnum, a Viburnum rhytidophylloides 'Allegheny,' usually blooms in the autumn.  Or just a frequently, it tries to bloom during warms spell in the winter, and the flowers get frozen back when the temperature drops.  This is the biggest, and most coarse of the three.  It is currently about eight feet tall, and just as wide, the leaves the longest and widest of all the three.  I don't have a good photo of the entire bush for comparison.  Currently it is in an awkward stage having had bad winter kill two year ago when it broke dormancy in the middle of the winter.  There are new branches suckering up from the ground, which are beginning to cover up its open nakedness.  I am trying to respect its privacy, waiting for it to be decently covered up.