I purchased five 2-gallon 'Kern's Pink' viburnum from my local co-op 2 years ago and planted them 10' apart down my driveway. They had already bloomed before I bought them, so I had to rely on the tag as to what they looked like.

This year when they bloomed, one of them was different than the others. This bush was bigger than the other four and it barely had any flowers on it. The leaves were a different color as well.

Did this 'odd' bush revert back to native root stock or did I get a mis-tagged bush? They came from Freedom Tree Farms (whole-seller to local stores around here) and I've had some issues before with other trees I bought not being what the tag said.

If it is another variety of viburnum, why did it not flower? What would cause this? Also, is it normal for Kern's Pink to be solid white?

I'm disappointed because I planted 5 bushes, spaced 10' apart and the non-flowering one is in the 4th position. If it was in the middle, or on the end I could remove it and it wouldn't look so bad, but to dig this one up and not replace it will leave a 20' gap between the first 3 bushes and the one on the end.

I've considered trying to propagate another by air-layering a branch on one of the bushes to replace the 'odd' bush and hopefully it will catch up to the others in a few years. I'm leaning towards this option because I'm not even sure these are Kern's Pink.

Any help or advice will be appreciated, jill

@ViburnumValley

Caveat emptor...

That's the short answer. For the longer, make sure you have your feet up and a refreshing beverage at hand.

'Kern's Pink' is a selection of Viburnum plicatum f. plicatum - Japanese Snowball Viburnum. These snowball types have sterile blooms composed of the showy white florets and no/few reproductive parts. There are a host of named selections like this, including 'Mary Milton', 'Popcorn', 'Newport', 'Pink Sensation', and quite a few others old and new. In my experience in the central Kentucky Bluegrass region, it is not unusual for the "pink" selections to not always be so "pink"-ee every year. There is often variation in the pink/white ratio across a single plant in a single blooming season. I suspect weather, sun exposure, soils, moisture level, nutrients, and simple vagaries of a plant's genetics will give these results.

The species from which the snowball versions arose (by millenia of seedling selection) is Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum - Doublefile Viburnum. This species (and its zillions of named selections) display the lacecap type flower - as is showing on your "black sheep" individual. This is a great species as well, and you could do worse than to punt the snowballs and get four more lacecap types!

I suspect that whoever propagated all those plants messed up in the labeling somewhere along the production line, and a lacecap cutting got lost in among the snowball group. That's not unheard of - and it is why I led with the "Caveat emptor" post.