Red-osier dogwood

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 to 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.

A drought-and-flood-tolerant native shrub of eastern North America with brilliant three-season interest - spring white-pink flowers, glossy black antioxidant-rich late-summer berries, and brilliant wine-red fall foliage - plus an extraordinarily wide cold-hardiness range (USDA 3a-8b). The berries are astringent fresh but the basis of a small but growing commercial industry (juices, wines, jams, supplements) for their exceptionally high anthocyanin content. Spreads by suckers; site where colony formation is welcome.

A native southeastern US deciduous shrub with deep-red strap-petaled fragrant flowers in late spring - the scent variously described as strawberry, banana, or wine, and reliably present only on cultivated cultivars with selected fragrance. Among the most distinctive native shrubs for woodland-edge and shaded mixed borders.

A native North American deciduous shrub with exfoliating bark (hence "ninebark"), white-to-pink spring flower clusters, papery red seedpods, and reliable fall color. Colored-foliage cultivars (Diabolo, Coppertina, Summer Wine) extend the design palette. Adaptable + drought-tolerant once established.

Inkberry (Ilex glabra) is the native evergreen shrub that does the job boxwood is usually asked to do, and does it on ground boxwood would die on. It is a slow, upright-rounded, five-to-eight-foot broadleaf evergreen of the eastern coastal plain, with small smooth-edged glossy leaves and none of the spines the genus is known for - so it reads as a soft green mass rather than a holly. Its fruit is the surprise: pea-sized drupes that ripen jet black, not red, which is where the name comes from and which makes it the odd one out in this group. It is hardy from zone 4 to 9, tolerates wet soil, erosion, rabbits, deer and city conditions, and Missouri Botanical Garden lists it for rain gardens and low hedging. Two things to plan for. It needs acid soil and goes chlorotic on lime. And it is stoloniferous - it spreads by suckers into a colony, which is a feature in a naturalized planting and a nuisance in a tidy foundation bed.

Two things to settle before anything else. First, the name: this catalog already carries a plant called Possumhaw, and it is a holly, Ilex decidua. They are unrelated, they want different ground, and only one of them is this shrub. Missouri Botanical Garden files this species under smooth witherod and mentions possumhaw viburnum second, which is the safer name to buy under. Second, the ground: this is the wet-soil viburnum. MBG rates it medium to wet water, lists wet soil as its one tolerance and rain garden among its two suggested uses, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center puts it in savannas, low wet woods and bogs on wet, mucky, acid soils. That is the axis that separates it from its relatives here. Mapleleaf viburnum is the dry-shade suckering understorey shrub, nannyberry is the tall small tree of upland edges, and possumhaw viburnum is the one you plant where water sits. What you get for the wet feet is the best fruit display in the group and one of the best of any native shrub. The ovoid berries do not simply ripen, they run a colour sequence - light pink, then deep pink, then blue, then purplish black - and because a cluster ripens unevenly, deep pink and blue-purple berries commonly sit in the same cyme in late summer against glossy dark green leaves that follow with maroon to red-purple fall colour. The catch is that the display depends on pollination. MBG says outright to plant shrubs in groups rather than as single specimens for best cross-pollination and subsequent fruit display, so a lone plant is the one way to get all of the shrub and none of the reason for it.