The toughest, most cold-hardy, and most sun-tolerant of the common hydrangeas, grown for big cone-shaped (panicle) flower clusters that open creamy white in mid to late summer and age to pink, rose, or tawny tan as the season cools. Because it blooms on new wood, it flowers reliably even after hard winters and can be pruned hard in late winter without losing the show. Native to eastern and southern China, Japan, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, the species is large — an arching, multi-stemmed, often vase-shaped shrub that can reach the size of a small tree — though most garden cultivars are bred smaller. It wants full sun to part shade and consistent moisture; all parts are toxic if eaten.

An upright, multi-stemmed, suckering deciduous shrub in the olive family, grown for its intensely fragrant mid-to-late-spring (May) bloom of lilac-purple flowers in large conical panicles. Native to southeastern Europe and cultivated in North America since the early 1600s, it matures to 12-16 feet tall with blue-green, pointed-ovate to heart-shaped leaves. It needs cold winters and cool summers — and offers few ornamental features after bloom, with leggy form, no fall color, and summer powdery mildew.

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.

A virtually stemless, broadleaf-evergreen native of central and eastern North America: a basal rosette of rigid, sword-shaped, spine-tipped leaves up to 30 inches long, fringed along the margins with the curly white threads that give the species its name. In early summer a flowering stalk shoots from the center to 5-8 feet, carrying nodding, bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers. Tough enough for poor sandy soil, heat, drought, and salt spray, it earns its keep as architectural structure in dry and seaside gardens.