Boneset

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.

A tall, clump-forming native legume of eastern North America grown for showy mid- to late-summer clusters of gold-yellow flowers accented by dark, curving anthers. The pinnately compound leaves carry a club-shaped gland on the petiole, and the long-lived plants reach 4 to 6 feet. Bumblebees work the pollen-only flowers, hummingbirds visit, and the seeds feed birds including bobwhites.

Nannyberry is the viburnum you can walk under. Missouri Botanical Garden describes a large, upright, multi-stemmed, suckering shrub of 10 to 18 feet that may also be grown as a single-trunk tree reaching 30 feet, and that second option is most of the reason to choose it: in a group where almost everything tops out as a rounded 6-to-10-foot mass, this is the one that can be limbed up into a small tree with a canopy, a trunk and usable space beneath. It is also the northernmost of them. MBG rates it Zone 2 to 8, the native range runs from New Brunswick west to southeastern Saskatchewan, and Wikipedia calls it one of the best small trees of eastern America for parks and gardens in regions of extreme winter cold. The fruit is the second argument. Flat-topped white cymes up to 5 inches across open in May and give way to blue-black drupes on reddish stalks that hang into winter, and unlike most of the genus they are genuinely good to eat - thick-skinned, sweet and juicy in Wikipedia's description, eaten off the bush or made into jam per MBG. Two caveats belong up front. The first is mildew: MBG lists mildew and leaf spot as occasional problems and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says outright that it sometimes develops mildew in shady areas, so this is a plant to give sun and moving air rather than a stuffy corner. The second is that it colonises by two routes at once. It sends up root suckers, which MBG says to remove unless naturalisation is what you want, and the Wildflower Center adds that old branches arch down and take root where they touch. Left alone at the back of a property that behaviour builds a thicket for free; in a tended border it is a job that returns every year.

A long-lived native perennial of central and eastern US woodland borders and prairie meadows with deep blue pea-shaped flowers in late spring, blue-green leguminous foliage, attractive black seed pods for winter interest, and a nitrogen-fixing root system (Fabaceae). Larval host for 6 documented butterfly species per NC State (orange sulphur, clouded sulphur, frosted elfin, eastern tailed-blue, hoary edge, wild indigo duskywing) - among the highest Lep-host-count perennials in the eastern flora.

A bold, moisture-loving native perennial of eastern North America that dies back to a woody base each winter and returns to throw up stout 2 to 6 feet stems topped with enormous 4-8 inch saucer-shaped flowers - white, pink, red, or burgundy, each with a contrasting central eye - from June into September. NC State Extension describes a herbaceous perennial hardy across USDA zones 4a-9b that thrives in wet to constantly moist soils, tolerates heat, humidity, and even brief flooding, and draws hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators. The tropical-looking dinner-plate blooms make it a dramatic focal point for rain gardens, pond edges, and the back of a sunny border.

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.