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Plant Life Valerie Easton

Spring For These

Among all that's new, some shrubs and trees seem irresistible

The deluge of fresh plants each spring is equal parts titillating and agonizing. We crave the temptations breeders seem able to pop out like one piece of toast after another. The dilemma lies in exercising caution in proportion to the larger, more permanent role trees and shrubs play in the landscape. Yet if we wait until these treasures are vetted by the test of time, we miss the pleasures to be found in growing the newest of the new.

I've had the delicious task of sorting through all the springtime hype to come up with a short — very short — list of garden-worthy new trees and shrubs. If they don't have these treasure in stock, most nurseries should be able to order them for you soon, if not immediately. And if a plant is hard to find this year, you can bet it'll be available everywhere and cheaper next year. Just remember that you pays the price and you takes the chances. And therein lies the lure.

EVERGREEN SHRUBS

An evergreen shrub from New Zealand with cool foliage? Everyone is going to want at least one Kohuhu, Pittosporum (P. tenuifolium 'Silver Star'). A drought-tolerant shrub to 10 feet high for a sunny spot, this pittosporum is dressed up in sage-green leaves with wavy edges and near-black stems. Its form is dense and takes to shearing into a neat blob of year-round silver-green foliage.

Abelia x grandiflora 'Kaleidoscope' is kind of a scaled-down, more colorful version of its workhorse relative 'Edward Goucher.' For a shrub that tops out under 3 feet with little white flowers, it has great presence in the garden because of its lively leaves variegated in yellow, deep green, chartreuse and cream.

DECIDUOUS SHRUBS

If I search out one plant on this list (who am I kidding? I'll probably pant after all of them), it'll be Sambucus 'Black Lace.' This is one elegant elderberry, with foliage as filigreed as a Japanese maple, yet dark as a crow's wing. A deciduous shrub that grows to 8 feet, it can be cut back every spring to keep it container-sized.

I love hydrangeas so much I can almost forgive the silly names given these updated versions. Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lemon Daddy' has chartreuse leaves topped off with pink or blue flowers (depending on your soil's pH). It's tidy (4 feet high and wide) to grow in pots and urban gardens, with foliage bright enough to light up a shady corner.

If you prefer pale flowers, check out the new Endless Summer hydrangea called 'Blushing Bride.' Let me interpret. It's a mophead hydrangea (H. macrophylla) with snowy white flowers, maturing to pink (that's the blush part). "Endless Summer" may sound like a Tennessee Williams play, but it means this hydrangea has an especially long flowering period because it blooms on both old and new wood.

ROSES

What's spring without roses? The "Easy Elegance Collection" (I'm sorry, plants have trademark names these days) introduces its first climbing rose, called 'Showtime.' The flowers are camellia-like in their clear-red glossiness centered with golden yellow stamen.

The small shrub rose 'Yellow Brick Road' is from the same grower. Supposedly (I have no reason to doubt this claim, other than experience with other yellow roses), this one is disease-resistant. With repeat-blooming, lemon-yellow flowers, it's an own-root rose, with a mounded shape ideal for groundcover, low hedging or a spot at the front of the border.

TREES

The new pagoda dogwood called Golden Shadows (Cornus alternifolia 'W. Stackman') is a layered, spreading tree so give it plenty of space. Heart-shaped, hosta-like leaves patterned in green and bright yellow clothe the graceful branches. To add to this tree's considerable impact, the leaves come on flushed with orange, followed by lacy white flowers in late spring.

Still rare, and of somewhat questionable hardiness, is the timber bamboo Borinda lushuiensis. Breeders hope it'll prove to be hardy in our climate, and because it has maroon culm sheaths, blue-toned canes, grows 25 feet high and is a clumping not a running bamboo, we really hope so, too.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.

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