A graceful, long-blooming shrub grown for its hanging, lantern-like flowers — a vivid red tube and sepals around a deep violet-purple skirt of inner petals, dangling on thread-fine stems from early summer until frost. Native to the cool, moist temperate forests and roadsides of southern South America (the Andes of Chile and Argentina south to Tierra del Fuego, and north into Peru), Fuchsia magellanica is the hardiest of the common fuchsias. In its mildest range it builds into an arching, rounded woody shrub 5-10 feet tall and wide; in cold-winter gardens it dies back to the ground each year and regrows as a smaller subshrub. The pendant flowers are built for hummingbirds, and small blue-black berries follow. It is the fuchsia to reach for where ordinary basket fuchsias would never survive the winter.

A four-season native shrub of the southeastern United States, where NC State Extension notes it grows wild in moist woods and along stream banks. It is an upright, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub, slow-growing to roughly 4-8 feet tall and 4-10 feet wide, named for its large, oak-shaped, lobed dark-green leaves. Showy pyramidal 4-12 inch panicles of creamy-white flowers open from late spring into summer and fade to pink and then tan, while the bold foliage turns wine, orange, and mahogany in fall over peeling cinnamon bark. Easy and low-maintenance in organically rich, well-drained soil, it is grown as a specimen, in masses, or as an informal hedge.

A deciduous European hedgerow shrub or small tree grown above all for one of the most arresting autumn shows of any native woody plant — rosy-pink, four-lobed fruit capsules that split to reveal vivid orange-coated seeds, hanging against red-purple foliage. Native across Europe and into western Asia (POWO, Kew), it is a tough, undemanding plant for hedgerows and informal screens that genuinely earns its keep for wildlife: insect-pollinated flowers in spring, seeds taken by birds, and aphid colonies that feed ladybirds and hoverflies. The honest pitch, and it is load-bearing: every part of this plant is toxic if eaten and the colourful fruit is especially so, so it must be sited away from where children might be tempted; it is also a primary winter host of the black bean aphid, so keep it well clear of a vegetable plot. With those two caveats respected, it is a dependable, wildlife-rich native — chosen for honest autumn drama, not for being trouble-free.

The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) is a handsome evergreen of the heath family that earns its keep through one striking trick: in autumn it carries white, urn-shaped flowers and round, warty, red strawberry-like fruit on the plant at the same time, against dark glossy leaves and peeling red-brown bark. Native to the Mediterranean region and, unusually, western Ireland (POWO, Kew), it is a tough, drought- and lime-tolerant shrub or small tree for mild gardens — but only moderately cold-hardy (roughly USDA zone 7 and warmer), so it is not a plant for hard-winter areas. RHS gives it the Award of Garden Merit and rates it hardy in most of the UK in mild areas (H4). The fruit is edible but bland and mealy fresh — its name unedo, 'I eat one', is a fair warning — and is mostly used cooked for jams and liqueurs.

A native upright perennial of east-central NA wet meadows producing dense purple flower spikes that bloom top-down in late summer — among the most reliable monarch-migration nectar plants in the eastern flora. NC State documents goldfinches feeding on the seeds with enthusiasm, plus two specialist moth larvae (Liatris flower moth Schinia sanguinea and Liatris borer moth Carmenta anthracipennis). Native stem-nesting bees use the dead winter stems.

A tall, bold warm-season annual from Mexico and Guatemala (the "African" name is a misnomer of its European garden history) grown for large, fully double, pompon-like flowerheads in saturated yellow, gold, and orange over strongly aromatic, finely divided foliage. Plants reach 12-48 inches and bloom from early summer to frost in full sun. The petals are edible and used as a culinary garnish and natural dye, and the flowers are the iconic "flor de muerto" of Mexican Day of the Dead. Despite the wide listed zone range it is frost-tender and grown for a single warm season.