Mature shrubs, easily 10' tall, white snowball type flowers in spring. No berries, no thorns, no odor. New growth from ground and branches. Zone 6b. Unknown age, house built 1976, we are 2nd owners. The 2nd photo is spring 2016 after cutting out the dead wood that had not leafed out. The bushes are twice as wide now, nearly encasing the bird seed box.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.c...
That might help. I cant really read it on my..phone

Thank you sallyg.
It's definitely tall enough to be a viburnum. We were thinking of doing a severe pruning, looks like it's too late in the season.

It looks like a viburnum to me, specially the leaves.

yes.. I 'think' snowball hydrangea would have oval leaves. That should be easy enough to check (if I am right). Also I think viburnum has 5 petals, hydrangea more like 4 per flower

(("standing back in case I am wrong and ViburnumValley comes along and wallops me.."))

Maybe?

So it is one of a few different Viburnums, my concern is how to manage it.
For 3 years I removed dead wood and mulched, not much else. I cut the dead wood out in the fall, then after leaf-out in the spring, some years I do it again midsummer. Yet it always has dead branches.
As we've added more flowers, annuals, perennials and shrubs on our nearly 3 acres, we've gotten a larger variety of birds. Every morning and evening I see them in the viburnums perching on dead wood waiting their turn at the seed feeder.
Am I doing them a disservice by removing the dead wood?
Is it normal to have additional branches die all summer long?
Do viburnums have a natural lifespan like trees do? These could be 45 yrs old.

I think removing dead wood is always good.

Those are certainly Viburnum opulus 'Roseum', the sterile snowball flowered form of non-native European Cranberrybush Viburnum.

In my experience in Kentucky, a borer attacks stems of this species (along with the related native Viburnum trilobum), which generates the annual dead branches. There really is no good answer for that except to replace them with something that doesn't have this problem.

If you asked me, I'd suggest a really easy grower, the native Viburnum dentatum. Arrowwood Viburnum grows with abandon, will get every bit as big as what you currently have, but will have late spring white fertile flowers which when adequately cross-pollinated will produce dark blue fruits which birds relish. That means you should plant two different named selections of Arrowwood Viburnum, like an 'Autumn Jazz' and a 'Chicago Lustre'.

Following that plan, you will have attractive flowers, copious attractive fruit, bird food (which will drop the seeds to produce more plants), and reasonable fall color across the yellow/orange/red/purple spectrum. Not too shabby.

There is one good thing about dead bnranches: you are able to watch more birds, more of the time.
You can see birds when they are not in the feeder. With thick bushy shrubs, they will hide until it's "their turn" to feed. You really miss out, not observing their natural habits that are unrelated to actually feeding.

Not sure if this matters to you. When I grew up out in the country, we had a bird feeder, but didn't use it to attract birds so we could look at them. It was an environmentally helpful way to recycle old bread and assorted table scraps, trimmed animal fat, etc. into the natural ecosystem.

They sure are beautiful!

Here's our database entry for European Snowball Bush (Viburnum opulus 'Roseum') and here are our database entries for the one's John suggested:
Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum)
Southern Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum Autumn Jazz®)
Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum Chicago Lustre®)

Hubby keeps the feeder filled with a gneral mx. I put a suet feeder in the maple tree once nights start getting cold. We're not proficient birders but can identify a few and our 5r granddaughter enjoys spotting cardinals and bue jays.When the large birds are around the smaller ones hang out on the bare branches.
Having dead branches makes getting a good look at a bird from our dining room a lot easier.

The viburnum dendatum bushes look a lot better than ours.
I'm planning to pull out the invasive snowball hydrangea this fall, have to pull it out with my truck. I could put a viburnum in that spot once I'm sure it won't resprout. Wait a year, remove one of the old viburnums, replace it, and repeat the 3rd year. Hopefully I can keep the wildlife happy and replace old worn out shrubs.

I imagine with fuller shrubs, you will attract more. Birds also enjoy places to quickly hide, especially if a predator swoops by.

I believe it is a Smooth Hydrangea. We have several in our yard. If you look it up in the internet you will be able to read all about them.

Here we are, a year later, and they look worse. This summer a bird planted tree has thrived. Considering cutting the worst looking one to the ground. Any advice?

Agree with your idea to phase out the unproductive snowballs, and reinvigorate your landscape with additional fruitful viburnums.

Trees, and even dead branches stuck in the ground, will serve as bird perches for human observation. Birds will perch on just about anything, from fence wire to clotheslines to farm implements to muck buckets.

To preserve a dying/dead plant for that sole purpose kind of defies logic.