Blackhaw viburnum

A native eastern + central North American multi-stemmed deciduous shrub with dentate (toothed) foliage, white spring flower clusters, blue-black drupes, and reliable fall color. Especially valued for wildlife - among the most-cited native shrubs for fall-migration bird forage.

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 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.

A four-season native shrub of the southeastern United States, where NC State Extension notes it grows wild in moist woods and along stream banks. It is an upright, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub, slow-growing to roughly 4 to 8 feet tall and 4 to 10 feet wide, named for its large, oak-shaped, lobed dark-green leaves. Showy pyramidal 4-12 inch panicles of creamy-white flowers open from late spring into summer and fade to pink and then tan, while the bold foliage turns wine, orange, and mahogany in fall over peeling cinnamon bark. Easy and low-maintenance in organically rich, well-drained soil, it is grown as a specimen, in masses, or as an informal hedge.