Star jasmine

Sasanqua camellia is an evergreen shrub native to the forests of southern Japan - Kyushu, Shikoku, and the Ryukyu Islands - where it grows on forest margins and hillsides. In gardens it is prized as the earliest-flowering camellia, bearing fragrant blooms from September through January when almost nothing else is in flower, and it tolerates more sun and drought than its cousin Camellia japonica. The honest catch is cold hardiness: open flowers are blackened by hard frost, and the plant itself is reliably hardy only from zone 7a south, making it unsuitable for much of the northeastern and midwestern United States without meaningful shelter.

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.

Mountain hydrangea is a compact, deciduous flowering shrub native to the mountainous regions of Japan and Korea, where it grows in cool, moist, partly shaded conditions - and that cool mountain origin is the honest catch. Hardy through USDA Zone 6 when dormant, the plant breaks dormancy early and its new spring growth is reliably vulnerable to late frosts; a single late freeze in April can destroy an entire season's bloom on wood that would otherwise flower in midsummer. It is smaller and more refined than bigleaf hydrangea, with serrated leaves and distinctive lacecap flowerheads in blue or pink depending on soil pH, making it a graceful focal point for partly shaded borders where consistent moisture can be maintained.

Coronilla valentina is a compact, evergreen Mediterranean shrub in the legume family (Fabaceae), with a native range spanning the Mediterranean Basin from Portugal and Spain through Italy, the NW Balkans and Greece to the Aegean and Turkey, and south across northwest Africa to Libya. In a warm, sheltered garden spot it rewards with prolific, intensely honey-scented yellow flowers from late winter into summer and handsome glaucous foliage year-round. The honest catch is cold-hardiness: RHS rates it H4 (hardy to about 14°F), so it is borderline at the cold edge of USDA zone 7 and is liable to be cut to the ground or killed outright in a hard freeze, demanding a sheltered south- or west-facing wall in colder gardens - and the whole plant is toxic to humans and livestock.

Aloe arborescens (Krantz aloe, also candelabra aloe) is a large, multi-headed evergreen succulent shrub from southeastern southern Africa, growing 6.6 to 13.1 feet tall with branching stems topped by blue-green rosettes of toothed, recurved leaves. In winter it throws up unbranched, vivid red-orange flower racemes that draw sunbirds, butterflies, and bees, making it a strong structural and pollinator plant for frost-free Mediterranean and subtropical gardens or large containers. It is frost-tender: the RHS rates it H1b (hardy only to about 50 to 59°F), so outside roughly USDA zone 9b-11 it must be grown under glass or moved indoors for winter. The RHS flags it as harmful if eaten by people and pets - the bitter yellow leaf latex carries aloin (an anthraquinone laxative/irritant), distinct from the milder clear inner gel used traditionally in folk medicine. It is also noted as locally invasive where conditions are mild (e.g. Portugal), so site it thoughtfully in benign climates. Easily propagated from cuttings, it is widely planted in South Africa as a living security hedge around kraals.

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.