Tea plant

The Mediterranean evergreen whose leathery, glossy dark-green leaves are the bay leaf of the kitchen. Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder describes it as a pyramidal, aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub that can reach 60 feet but is usually seen at 10 to 30 feet and is often pruned to 8 feet or less for garden use. Trees are dioecious: small yellowish-green spring flowers on female plants, if pollinated, give way to single-seeded purple-black berries. Winter hardy only to USDA Zone 8, so it is grown as a clipped container houseplant farther north.

A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5 to 12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh - they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

Cape honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis, Bignoniaceae) is a vigorous, evergreen scrambling shrub from southern and south-central Africa, valued for tubular orange-to-apricot flowers borne erratically across much of the year. It reaches about 6.6 to 9.8 feet tall and wide as a free-standing shrub, or can be trained much taller on a trellis or wall, and is widely used for informal hedging and as a hot-color border or container plant. It is frost-tender (RHS H1C; roughly USDA 9b-11) - in cooler climates it is grown under glass or as a summer container plant and overwintered indoors. In frost-free, mild climates it can become weedy: it has naturalised and is treated as invasive in parts of Australia and on islands such as the Azores, so site it where suckering and self-layering can be managed. It is not a recognised edible and is not flagged as notably toxic, though several plant parts feature in traditional southern-African medicine; treat it as ornamental rather than for consumption. Note the accepted binomial here is Tecomaria capensis (POWO/GBIF); the widely-seen Tecoma capensis is a synonym.

Loropetalum chinense is an evergreen shrub native to woodlands and thickets across southern China, Japan, Taiwan, and adjacent parts of Southeast Asia, valued in gardens for its distinctive ribbon-like flowers and, in the popular purple-leaved forms, year-round burgundy foliage. It thrives in zones 7-9 as a bold structural shrub or hedging plant, blooming most heavily in late winter to early spring. The honest catch is its absolute dependence on acidic soil: even slightly alkaline pH triggers iron chlorosis, and in the Southeastern US a bacterial crown gall disease can cause rapid branch dieback and plant death, making site preparation and soil testing non-negotiable before planting.

Heavenly bamboo is an evergreen (semi-deciduous in cold winters) shrub native to eastern Asia from the Himalayan foothills to Japan, valued for striking year-round foliage that flushes pink-red in spring, turns green in summer, and blazes red-purple in autumn and winter, plus panicles of white summer flowers and persistent bright-red berries. It is adaptable, drought-tolerant once established, and undemanding in most soils from full sun to part shade. The honest catch is dual: all plant parts - especially the berries - contain cyanogenic compounds, and excessive consumption of the berries can be lethal to cedar waxwings and is toxic to cats and livestock, making it a poor choice wherever birds congregate to feed on winter fruit; and in the southeastern United States it is classified invasive (Florida Category I) and is best replaced with a non-invasive native alternative.

Japanese holly is a dense, small-leaved evergreen shrub native to Japan, Korea, eastern China, and adjacent regions of eastern Asia, widely grown as a boxwood substitute for formal hedging and topiary. It tolerates heavy shearing well and thrives in acidic soils in a range spanning USDA zones 5b-8b. The honest catch is twofold: the glossy black berries are toxic to humans and pets (a genus-wide trait of Ilex), and the species is listed as invasive in parts of the eastern United States, where bird-dispersed seedlings colonise native woodland edges.