not much we can do.. w/o a picture..

was the lawn sprayed within the last few weeks..

water would have no VISUAL effect on it.. but it may have saved the plant.. who knows ???

ken

I'd check with the base of the trunk, near to the level of the soil. Look for animal damage, bark splitting.

If you live in an area with voles, check to see if they have tunneled under your shrub by pushing on the soil around the plant. What roots they don't eat they leave exposed to air through their tunnels.

Sorry about how big they are, but here's the other shot of my suddenly wilted viburnum.

No tunneling but it *is* damaged. That cracked bark at the base indicates a problem at the root crown, possibly below.

Well, drooping is never good news. Cracked bark at the base of the stems is not good either.

Worst: that doesn't look like Viburnum nudum 'Winterthur'.

If you are comfortable posting a few more pictures...could you show the whole context of the planting area, the whole individual wilting/drooping plant, and some closeups of your other viburnums?

The foliage shot above looks like a V. x burkwoodii.

Oh of course you are absolutely right, viburnumvalley (as of course you would be, I know you know everything about viburnums!) It is burkwoodii. I was actually thinking yesterday, hmmmm, I think the other one might be the Winterthur, I've mixed those two up before. The Winterthur is on the other end. I'm on my way out now but I'll post more pictures later. The other two viburnums look okay so far. They had damage after our October blizzard last year, some branches broken, so they are shorter than they used to be. I hadn't noticed the cracked bark before, that really doesn't look good, does it. Thank you so much, though! I really appreciate your help.

You are quite welcome - and there is so much more to know about one of my favorite genera. The conversation here is the classroom.

And your commentary about recent weather events in your plants' lives has offered a lesson in relatively unobservable but possibly causal issues...

The damage wrought by snow loads and ice storm accumulations on plants that survive the initial event are often invisible to those who don't know to look.

We think of the trees that crash to the ground, or limbs that are torn asunder, or shrubs that are flattened/crushed and need rejuvenation. We don't think so much about those plants that are impossibly bent like so many botanical contortionists, yet return to their apparently normal selves upon snow or ice melt.

What lays hidden is the longitudinally split stem and other internal xylem/phloem damage - which then suddenly can reveal its effect come the following growing season.

I can't say that this is the only thing that is wrong with your plant, but it sure can be a contributor. The best thing (if there is one, with a suffering viburnum as the subject) is that Burkwood Viburnum is an incredibly vigorous and tough plant under most circumstances. If this isn't a root rot or excessively wet site problem, you can likely cut back any parts that are underperforming - read: dead - and this plant will respond with strong new growth from basal dormant buds. Water and fertilize to encourage the new growth.

You know, it really has been a rough couple of years, we had a big wind event in March 2010 that toppled huge pines, then Irene, then that October blizzard that did a lot of damage that I can still see, trees that lost their beautiful shape because huge limbs got lopped off in the middle, etc. I did have to cut off some broken branches off all three little viburnums. They might well have had some damage I wasn't sharp-eyed enough to catch. This happened so fast, though! Really, I was only gone about five days, something happened in there somewhere. Anyway, here's another picture, stricken one on the right, although I doubt it adds much information useful for a diagnosis:) Cutting off everything "underperforming" (I love that word! I can think of a lot of things to describe with THAT word!) will mean going right down to the ground, I guess I should do that gradually rather than all at once? I'll keep watering, and I'll fertilize. I have whole piles of printed-out viburnum posts from this forum, thank you all for those, too! (And I"m sorry for complaining about our weather, seems like just about every state is having much more extreme and damaging weather than here.) Thanks so much! If you hear of any diseases that would (almost) kill a burkwoodii viburnum, let me know!

I don't think this actually made its way onto my post before. Anyway, here it is. Thanks again, everyone.