Common it may be, but metallic blue berries on red stems, shown off by ribbed, evergreen leaves, make Viburnum davidii a plant worth growing in our gardens - despite its appearance in so many municipal landscapes.

I'm determined to stop apologizing for all the plants I grow that aren't the newest, most expensive and most difficult to find. It is human nature to want to grow what others can't, to lust after plants hardly anyone else can find, but that is such a small part of making a year-round garden. The fact is that plants are common for a simple reason: They are easy. And this isn't a bad thing. If our gardens didn't consist mainly of these "do-gooder" backbone plants, how would we have the time to fuss with the semi-tropical, the puny, the exotic and the trendy?

Now In Bloom Fatsia japonica is a splay-leafed evergreen shrub that looks as if it should be a houseplant, but does fine outdoors in a sheltered spot. Its shiny leaves and architectural silhouette add a year-round presence to the garden. In late autumn, dozens of starry, fuzzy flowers are held up on ivory-colored little balls, followed by blue-black berries.

Plant snobbery keeps us learning and trying to pronounce the most impossible of Latin names. It keeps nurseries and growers in business, and our gardens fresh and ever-changing. However, it's time to acknowledge all those plants that grow along street meridians, municipal parking lots and also in our gardens. These are hard-working plants with many virtues worth celebrating, and I now publicly admit that the plants described below grow in my garden. Besides, most of them have now grown so large, or seeded about so prolifically, that I can no longer hide them by placing a dog, a wheelbarrow or myself in front of them when people come to visit:

• Is there another evergreen shrub as hackneyed as Viburnum davidii, the most ordinary of this widely varied genus? Hackneyed, yes, but also handsome, with ribbed, leathery leaves, a low-growing, spreading habit and brilliant blue berries shown off by pink stems in winter. It is so unassuming as to disappear in the flowery summer border. When the deciduous fluff dies down, it reappears to anchor the off-season border and provide foliage and berries for winter arrangements.

• Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) is a mass of twiggy stems in winter, and in summer its green leaves aren't particularly distinctive. It is, however, rock hardy, pest- and disease-free. And for a few weeks in autumn, nothing turns a brighter color; its leaves become pink and then uniformly scarlet, serving as a perfect backdrop to the tawny blooms of ornamental grasses. 'Compactus' is denser than the species, and stays smaller, growing slowly to 10 feet high.

• I confess to liking everything about the familiar scarlet Lychnis coronaria, with its silver foliage and carnation-like blossoms. The white-flowered one seeds around, too, if not as generously, but there is something about the marriage of brilliantly colored flower and softly sheened gray foliage that seems perfect in the pink version of rose campion. Once the flower is spent and the foliage looks ghostly, just pull it out. And if you give it a shake, you'll have plenty more seedlings next spring.

• While I have some of the newer pink and grape-colored daylilies, I particularly enjoy the old rust and yellow spider ones. I grow them at the front of my back bank, and in mid-summer their bright flowers nod in the breeze and grow tall to mingle with the leaves of a smokebush. They bloom a long time whether you pick off the blossoms or not, and generally just take care of themselves until they need dividing every couple of years.

And how about pansies, honeysuckle, mop-head hydrangeas, old-fashioned asters and daisies? Now that I'm confessing, the list could go on and on.

Valerie Easton is a horticultural librarian who writes about plants and gardens for Pacific Northwest magazine. She is the co-author of "Artists in Their Gardens" (Sasquatch Books). Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com. Richard Hartlage, director of the Miller Botanical Garden, is author of "Bold Visions for the Garden: Basics, Magic and Inspiration" (Fulcrum Publishing).