New shrubs and trees offer fragrance, flower and foliage

THE NURSERY industry is rolling out a springtime stimulus package sure to get us all shopping.

This year's theme appears to be that smaller is better and edible is best. Plant breeders are nothing if not inventive; they've raised colorful, tasty and tempting to an art form, as you'll see in several upcoming new-plant columns.

But please remember that these plants aren't yet tested in the realities of our soils and weather. I haven't seen any of them yet, except in photos and in my plant-lust-addled imagination, so I'm not recommending — just dangling them before you.

Many of these plants will grace nursery tables this spring, but others will debut only in mail-order catalogs, trickling down to nurseries next season. With such freshly minted plants we're all scientists in our own gardens. The search, and then the vetting, is half the fun.

• The first plant I'll be hunting down is a fragrant ground-cover rose with semidouble peachy flowers centered in yellow. Flower Carpet Amber is billed as exceptionally disease-resistant (best to retain a bit of skepticism when it comes to rose health in our climate). It hugs the ground at a mature size of 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide.

• Pyrus calleryana 'Jaczam,' or the tidy little Jack flowering pear, may turn out to be the perfect urban tree. It's disease-resistant, grows only about 15 feet tall by 10 feet wide and has a dense, upright shape easy to fit into smaller gardens. In springtime, this ornamental pear is loaded with snowy white flowers and its leaves are dark green and glossy; in autumn, little yellow fruits cluster on the brilliant red foliage.

• An August flowering lilac? Syringa 'Bloomerang' may be scarce this spring, but worth tracking down (try www.waysidegardens.com) as it's the first lilac that re-blooms throughout the summer. And it's a dwarf, growing only 4 to 5 feet high. Can you imagine the pleasure of inhaling lilac perfume at the same time roses and lilies are blooming? This may be the first time outside of a garden show that we've had the pleasure of smelling all three of these supremely fragrant flowers at the same time.

• Butterflies love the bushes that bear their name, but all too often these shrubs grow huge and/or spread too aggressively. Not true with Buddleia 'Blue Chip' from the Lo & Behold series. This dwarf is enough to grow in pots or mass at the front of borders. This knee-high butterfly bush grows only about 2 feet tall and wide, and blooms from June through frost. Not only do butterflies love 'Blue Chip' as much as the more invasive types, deer supposedly aren't interested.

• The new hardy clumping bamboos are a gift to gardeners. There's a narrow-leafed new clumper with an especially slim profile out this spring, Borinda augustissima, reliably hardy to 15 degrees and root hardier down to at least 7 degrees. So in most of our gardens this fine-foliaged bamboo will survive most winters. It is drought-tolerant, ideal for screening, prefers dappled shade and grows 18 feet tall but only 3 to 4 feet wide.

• Good hedge plants are hard to find, and often not very interesting. Monrovia has introduced several new cypress, called the "Guardian Series," that are especially disease-resistant. The prettiest of the bunch is Yvonne Port Orford Cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Yvonne') with flattened, bright golden foliage. It grows into a cone shape, reaching 8 to 10 feet over 10 years. Plant it in full sun to bring out the most vivid coloration.

• What's spring without a new hydrangea or two? Most exciting are the new twists on globe-like 'Annabelle' types. 'Incrediball' (who makes up these names, anyway?) has huge flower spheres a foot across held up on sturdy stems. Then there's 'Invincibelle Spirit,' an 'Annabelle' type with the surprise of pink flowers rather than the usual white. This plant not only looks good, it does good: 5 cents from every plant sold goes to support breast-cancer research. Just in case you needed a little more incentive to indulge.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer. Check out her blog at www.valeaston.com. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.