A woody, deciduous flowering shrub in the Hydrangeaceae, native to Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia and long grown as the classic "hortensia" or French hydrangea. NC State Extension describes a rounded shrub 3 to 6 feet tall and wide with large opposite, simple, toothed leaves (4-8 inches long) and big rounded mop-head or flat lacecap flower clusters in late spring and summer in white, pink, blue, or purple. Famously, flower color tracks soil chemistry — acidic soils push the blooms blue and alkaline soils turn them pink. It wants protection from hot afternoon sun and steady moisture, making it a mainstay of shaded foundation plantings and woodland borders.

A vigorous, scrambling, semi-climbing tender shrub that flowers almost without pause through the warm months, carrying broad clusters of soft sky-blue (or, in the white form, pure white) phlox-like flowers. Known as the Cape plumbago or Cape leadwort, it is native to South Africa (POWO, Kew) and is grown worldwide as an easy, long-flowering ornamental. The honest catch is its frost-tenderness: it is hardy only in USDA zones 9a-11, so in cold climates it is grown as a conservatory or large-container plant, or treated as a summer annual. Left to its own devices it climbs or sprawls 6 to 10 feet and needs support, or hard pruning, to keep its shape; the flower calyces are sticky and glandular and cling to clothing and animal fur (its own seed-dispersal trick), and it suckers. In return it is one of the best blue-flowered butterfly plants for a warm garden.

The classic broadleaf-evergreen shrub of formal hedges, topiary, and clipped borders — small, glossy dark-green opposite leaves on a dense rounded frame that takes shearing better than almost any other shrub. Native to southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa, it carries inconspicuous greenish-cream spring flowers and holds its leaves year-round. All parts are toxic if eaten and the foliage can cause skin irritation, but that same chemistry makes it reliably rabbit- and deer-resistant.

Wall germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) is the classic low edging and knot-garden sub-shrub of the formal Mediterranean garden — a tough, drought-loving evergreen that clips as neatly as a tiny hedge. It carries small, glossy, dark-green, scalloped leaves shaped like miniature oak leaves, and through summer it lifts short spikes of rose-pink to purple two-lipped flowers that bees work steadily. Native across Europe, the Mediterranean, and into western Asia (POWO, Kew), it is built for hot, dry, sun-baked ground and sharp drainage: it rots in wet or rich soil and is at its best on a lean bank, a hot border edge, or a clipped knot. Honest caution (load-bearing): although wall germander has a long folk-medicine history, it is now known to be HEPATOTOXIC and has caused serious liver damage when taken as a herbal remedy or slimming tea — so it is NOT safe to consume. Grow it strictly as an ornamental.

The jade plant is a long-lived succulent houseplant with thick, woody, branching stems and plump, glossy, jade-green oval leaves that flush red at the edges in bright light — the familiar "money plant" or "lucky plant". POWO (Kew) places it native to South Africa; it is grown worldwide in pots as one of the easiest and most forgiving of indoor succulents. RHS gives Crassula ovata the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) as an easy succulent houseplant for bright light and rates it frost-tender (H1C / H2). Honesty matters with this plant: it is killed far more often by kindness than by neglect — OVERWATERING and too little light cause soft, leggy, rot-prone growth, so let the soil dry out completely between waterings. It is TOXIC to cats and dogs (chewed leaves cause vomiting and lethargy). Mature plants can be trained as an indoor bonsai-like specimen and may, with age and a cool bright rest, bloom in clusters of small white-pink star flowers.

A rounded, slow-growing succulent shrub from the Western Cape of South Africa, the silver-leaved cousin of the common jade plant. Its thick, branching stems carry almost circular, fleshy leaves of a striking silvery-grey, edged in red where the sun hits them, and mature plants top out with domed clusters of pink-white star flowers. Like other Crassula it is an easy, drought-tolerant succulent that stores water in those plump leaves and uses CAM photosynthesis to cope with heat and dry air. POWO (Kew) places it as native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa, and it is frost-tender (about RHS H3), so outdoors it belongs only in warm, frost-free gardens (roughly USDA zones 9b-11) — everywhere colder it is a classic pot or house plant. It wants full sun to keep the silver colour and red margins, very sharp drainage, and only sparing water: overwatering and cold, wet soil are what rot and kill it, far more than any drought. The leaves are mildly toxic if eaten, to people and to pets, so it is grown for looks, not the table.