Silver Broom.  Uncommon xeric shrub endemic to the Sierra Nevada Mts of Spain.  This member of the Fabaceae family is fab indeed with pale flaking bark, silver-green needle-like leaves and sprays of soft yellow flowers.  Pretty awesome and locally grown to perfection at the Heg and Barca gardens on Whidbey Island.

This is likely the first introduction of this curious Tea family member from our collection in Guangxi Province. An evergreen shrub to 10' in the wild with long slightly drooping olive-green leaves prominently hirsute especially along the margins. Flowers are small and white and give way to small black fruit. We are thinking hardy to zone 8.

A Vietnam species which has been hardy to 15F.  Great container plant with tubular red flowers which can easily be moved inside for the winter where it can serve as a houseplant  until it is time to go back outside.  Or keep it outside until there is danger of frost and then hustle it in and bring it back out when safe.

Attractive cousin to blueberries growing in the trees of Thailands northern mountains.  Sometimes seen offered as a hybrid clone 'Red Elf', this is typical hosseana which is a small evergreen shrub with dark red flowers that can take light frost.  The fruit is edible and would be nice sprinkled on Thai Beef Salad, Phla Nuea.

Sadly, this flamboyant Blueberry relative is only hardy in Zone 9 but is an easy and dramatic attention-getter in a pot,  We keep ours in the cool greenhouse over winter but will do fine inside or just bring in during hard freezes.  1" red tubular flowers.

In the Himalayas Agapetes would be found as an epiphyte on the mossy trunks and branch crotches.  In this unusual variant, the flowers are creamy white followed by edible pale lavender fruit and its alliance with Vaccinium (blueberries) is easy to see. . Very easy to grow and will tolerate short exposure to light frost but best no colder than zone 9. The hummingbirds loved it.

Saskatoon Berry.  Selected for flavorful fruit, Smokey doubles as both an edible and an ornamental plus it is a native.  A fine small tree to just 12' or so with spring white flowers, dark raisiny fruit and good fall color.  Sure the deer eat it and of course the birds like the fruit so enjoy the wildlife and go buy a mango.

Leadplant.  A native to the upland plains of the Midwest, this leguminous shrub has  excellent textural foliage of small gray-green pea leaflets and quite nice terminal "antlers" of purplish flower spikes.  The flowers are tiny but are clustered in multitudes.  Good drainage, drought tolerant.

Bog Rosemary. This is a compact selection to just 6" tall and spreading with the gray-green needle-like leaves often taking on a red edge.  The short stems are hung with small pink bells in late spring which are enjoyed by bees.  Related to Rhododendrons and Heather, this likes a moist acidic spot in part sun.  Very hardy to zone 3.

One of the best of the bigger Manzanitas for the garden, this is tolerant of more "average" garden conditions than many of its kin. This is also one of the more rapid growers plus one of the hardiest. Nice clusters of white flowers on an open-crowned multi-trunked large shrub to 15', with rich reddish-brown bark.

One of the better selections of Aucuba and very rare in the nursery trade (actually can't find anyone offering this via Google). This was brought to the US by the now defunct Asiatica Nursery and shared with us by Lance Reiners. Narrow leaves consistently freckled in gold presents as major pizzazz with unmistakable elegance.  A tough evergreen tolerant of dry shade once established.  Zones 7-9.

This is pretty much our default tree whenever anyone asks about a good small tree. This has zero bad habits that we know about it and is a rapid grower with small evergreen leaves and minute yellow flowers that smell heavenly of marzipan or something similarly decadent.

A grand small-scale evergreen tree for our area.  This is what Boxwood dreams about becoming - much as I dream about being tall and thin, the humble Box envys this Azara with its perfect variegated leaves and tiny yellow flowers packing a big fragrance and all on a small tree frame.

This a plant in our shade garden that always attracts the attention of the woody plant collector. Collected in Sikkim by Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones from Cr�g Farm, this could be hardier. It has frozen back considerably but it has always regrown and been a feature each year. Mild winters here it does great and two years of growth can have stems to 4' or even 5'.

We were completely blown away by the plant we saw in full fruit in the exceptional garden at Dancing Oaks and sad to say, we did doth covet our neighbors plant with lust in our hearts.  Leonard and Fred thought it prudent to sell us one.  To 6'-8' with soft yellow flowers and dripping with clusters of salmon fruit.

FMWJ13290.  Collected at Lao Cai, Phansi Pan, Vietnam 2930 meters.  Quite a new plant to cultivation and early indications are is that it will have quite handsome foliage.  Many plants from this area are proving to have surprising hardiness in the PNW so we have hopes this will be the case with this Berberis.

This Beauty Berry is from the extensive Callicarpa collection at Stephen F. Austin Arboretum in Texas which they graciously shared with us.  Softly hairy leaves somewhat dark tinged and the usual flamboyant display of purplish fruit in late summer and fall.  Good heat tolerant species.

Our collection of this Beauty Berry from the far eastern Himalaya near the Myanmar border on a remote trail to Mt Saramati which we climbed 2 days later. It was hard. Real hard. Rare introduction of this species from an area seldom botanized since Kingdon-Ward in the 1930's.  Purple berries fall into winter on bare stems.

Bottlebrush.  Perhaps the hardiest clone enduring single digits with scarcely a whimper.  (It may be whimpering but my own wails of despair drown all else out).  Evergreen picking up russet tones in winter.  Summer fuzzy red flowers on the stems.  Deer Proof/drought tolerant.

From the venerable plant at the UW Arboretum comes this promising bottle brush.  The plant at the UW has weathered every fluke weather event in the last 20 years and emerged unscathed.  Narrowly yet densely upright with pale yellow-white bottle brush flowers and evergreen needley leaves.

Bottlebrush.  This is a selected form of the cold hardy species and differs by having 5" bottlebrushes of PURPLE flowers.  This would thrive against a hot south wall and will tolerate a range of soils as long as they drain well.  Evergreen and so far not munched by deer.

This is thought to be an intergeneric hybrid between 2 of New Zealand's shrubby daisies.  This gives a fabulous textural addition to the Mediterranean garden like some happy marriage of heather and rosemary.  Small white flowers cluster at the tops of the stems.  Good drainage, tolerant of some dry.

A very hardy Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit Ceanothus.  If you are going to name something the Glory of Versailles then it had better be good!  A deciduous shrub to 6' or 7' high or more and 5' or so wide with soft powder blue panicles of scented flowers mid summer into fall.   C. americanus and the Mexican C. coeruleus are it's parents.

An old French hybrid, this is far less twitchy than some others in the genus and of a size far more suited to the home garden.  Sizable semi-deciduous ovate leaves are held on burgundy stems which terminate in fluffy plumes of pink flowers.  The flowers peak in early summer but continue to appear until early fall.  Tolerates more water than most Ceanothus and is hardier.

Northwest late great plantman Roy Davidson found this growing wild on the shoulders of Mt Fuji in Japan and brought cuttings home.  This Japanese Flowering Quince has deep red flowers which smolder with the same intensity as that long evening of urgent abandon with that Spaniard in Barcelona where anything was fair game again and again and again...........

An older cultivar introduced in 1948 by Walter Clarke of Clarke Nurseries in San Jose who was blazing new trails in breeding Chaenomeles by crossing C. cathayensis and the hybrid x superba.with the resulting crosses called x californica and then he just had to name one 'California'.  This has showy pink and rose-pink flowers.

A Ron Ratko collection of this shrubby gem that flies under everyone's radar.  Native to ID, OR and the SW, we saw this in the White Mts growing with the ancient Bristlecone Pines.  Like a shrubby Spiraea but with white Potentilla-like flowers highlighted by yellow anthers.  Lacy moth antennae leaves.  Dry and well-drained.

One of our most favored small trees is this princeling of a cornel.  Late winter flowers of yellow filamentous buttons followed by perfectly clean white variegation in the leaves and are further accented when the flowers turn into edible reddish fruits in late summer.

One of the most distinctly "What is that plant?" deciduous shrubs around is this tough little mutant redstem dogwood.  Intensely columnar and slow with curled leaves held close to the vertical stems. These turn a most satisfying purple in the fall.  As far as flowers go, forget about it.  Slow growing, our 6 footer in the garden is pushing 40 years of age.

This is maybe the best variegated Red-Twig Dogwood selection with green leaves boldly margined in golden yellow and the contrast with the red twigs is pretty darn good.  The red twigginess is showy in the winter and great foliage spring and summer - what more do you need?