Spring has arrived in our upstate New York garden, and with it came an exciting delivery: our shrub order! This collection includes everything from tried-and-true favorites to brand-new varieties that won't even hit the market until next year. We're thrilled to share our selections and explain why we chose each one for specific areas in our garden, particularly around our new pondless waterfall.

Hydrangeas: From Fool-Proof to Finicky

Hydrangeas remain one of our garden favorites, offering incredible versatility and stunning blooms. Our 2025 collection includes varieties suitable for various growing conditions and maintenance levels.

Reblooming Varieties

For gardeners who want reliable blooms even after pruning mishaps or frost damage, these reblooming varieties offer peace of mind:

Let's Dance Ariba - This beautiful bigleaf hydrangea offers stunning purple-to-pink blooms (depending on soil pH) and impressive cold tolerance (Zone 4-9). At just 2-3 feet tall and wide, it's perfect for smaller spaces. We're creating a drift of five plants along our west fence, where they'll be protected from prevailing winds while enjoying plenty of sunlight.

Tough Stuff Aha - This mountain hydrangea combines the beauty of lacecap flowers with improved hardiness. Hardy to Zone 5, it stays compact at 2-3 feet tall and wide. We're placing a trio of these near our waterfall's rock formations, where their delicate blooms will soften the hardscape elements. Since they're mountain hydrangeas, positioning them next to boulders seems perfectly fitting!

Let's Dance Rhythmic Blues - Another rebloomer that's slightly larger (3-4 feet tall and wide) and particularly easy to turn blue with soil amendments. While we love the variety, we're still deciding on its perfect placement in our garden.

Low-Maintenance Options

For those spots where we want set-it-and-forget-it reliability, these varieties deliver:

Gatsby Globall - This brand new (coming in 2026) oakleaf hydrangea features a more compact form than typical oakleafs (3-4 feet tall and wide). What makes oakleafs special is their four-season interest: beautiful summer flowers, burgundy-purple fall foliage, and interesting peeling bark for winter. We're placing this at the top of our waterfall where it needs absolutely no maintenance and won't drop flowers into the water.

Pinky Winky Prime - An improved, larger version of the popular Pinky Winky panicle hydrangea. While most new hydrangea introductions tend to be smaller, this one bucks the trend at 6-9 feet tall and wide with more densely packed flower heads. Extremely cold-hardy (Zone 3) and blooming on new wood, it's virtually indestructible.

Powerball - This new panicle hydrangea offers something different: a rounder, mophead-style bloom on a panicle hydrangea frame. It combines the look of a bigleaf with the hardiness and strong stems of a panicle variety. Growing 3-6 feet tall and wide, it's hardy to Zone 3.

Incredible Stormproof - Coming in 2026, this improved version of the popular Incrediball hydrangea features significantly stronger stems that won't flop after rainstorms. At 3.5-4 feet tall and wide, it's slightly more compact than the original Incrediball while maintaining its impressive flower power.

Evergreens for Year-Round Structure

No garden is complete without evergreens providing structure throughout the seasons:

Montana Moss Juniper - This low-growing, spreading evergreen (2 feet tall, 4 feet wide) offers beautiful blue foliage without the prickly texture of many junipers. We're planning to use it along the crest of our waterfall area where it will create a beautiful blue accent against the rocks and provide year-round interest.

Soft Serve False Cypress - With fern-like, soft-textured foliage and a Christmas-tree shape, these evergreens (we have three) grow 6-10 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Their soft blue-green color adds a ghostly dimension to the landscape.

Cedar Rapids False Cypress - This impressive specimen will eventually reach 30 feet tall and 12-15 feet wide, comparable to a Green Giant arborvitae. Starting with a sizable specimen allows us to establish a strong focal point while we develop the surrounding garden.

Glow Pop Japanese Holly - This bright newcomer features golden-yellow foliage on new growth, creating a neon boxwood effect. Growing 2-3 feet tall and wide, it's hardy to Zone 5b and provides a cheerful evergreen presence.

Colorful Foliage Shrubs

For season-long interest beyond flowers, these foliage-focused plants deliver:

Kodiak Jet Black Diervilla - This 2026 introduction features deep burgundy foliage that darkens throughout the season. Growing 3-4 feet tall and wide and hardy to Zone 3, this native-derived shrub provides dramatic color contrast with only tiny yellow flowers as a bonus feature.

Paisley Pup Leucothoe (Dog Hobble) - This fascinating evergreen shrub features mottled, variegated foliage that changes colors throughout the seasons—from orange-pink to green-yellow. Growing 3-4 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide, it tolerates part shade and offers high deer resistance.

Bubbly Wine Weigela - Coming in 2026, this variegated weigela grows 3 feet tall and wide with bright pink flowers. Its uniquely patterned foliage adds interesting texture to the garden.

Sergeant Pepper Tatarian Dogwood - New for 2025, this dogwood features variegated leaves with white margins that develop vivid pink edges as the season progresses. At 4-6 feet tall and 6-8 feet wide, it makes a substantial statement in the landscape, plus offers colorful winter stems.

Arctic Fire Red Dogwood - These provide brilliant red stems for winter interest while staying more compact (3-5 feet) than traditional red-twig dogwoods. We're adding a group of four to create a dramatic mass planting near our white birches for stunning winter contrast.

Flowering Shrubs for Color & Fragrance

To add seasonal bursts of color and wonderful scents:

Flavorette Pear Rose - Part of the innovative Flavorette series that combines beauty with edible petals, this shell-pink rose grows 3-4 feet tall and wide. Like other roses in this series, the petals have a subtle flavor—in this case, pear—making them interesting additions to salads or beverages.

Oh So Easy Lemon Zest Rose - A low-maintenance landscape rose with cheerful yellow blooms that requires minimal care. At just 2-3 feet tall and wide, it's perfect for adding bright color without demanding attention.

Pugster Blue Butterfly Bush - This compact butterfly bush (2-3 feet) produces full-sized blue flower panicles on a dwarf frame. We'll plant it in a raised position to ensure good drainage, as butterfly bushes prefer drier conditions than our naturally moist site provides.

Spice Cowboy Viburnum - Coming in 2026, this impressive viburnum grows 10 feet tall by 5 feet wide with massive, intensely fragrant snowball-like blooms. We're excited about its potential as either a multi-stemmed small tree or a substantial shrub.

El Nino Chitalpa - Though marginally hardy in our Zone 6a garden, we're placing this fragrant flowering shrub in a container where it can serve as a centerpiece near our steps. The intoxicating scent and beautiful blooms make it worth the extra effort of container culture.

Edible Landscape Additions

Blending beauty with function, we're incorporating some productive plants:

Easy As Pie Bush Cherry - Coming in 2026, this space-saving sour cherry requires no pruning or spraying and produces enough fruit for pies and jams. Growing 3-4.5 feet tall and wide and hardy to Zone 3, it also offers vibrant fall color.

Taste of Heaven Thornless Blackberry - Combining delicious berries with ornamental appeal, this thornless blackberry grows 5 feet tall by 3 feet wide. It will provide weeks of fruit harvest while adding texture to our garden.

Experimental Additions

Sometimes gardening means taking chances and trying plants that push our zone boundaries:

Just Chill Double Mab Camellia - Though rated for Zones 7-9, we're trying this beautiful evergreen in a container that we can move to our garage for winter protection. Its pink double flowers with bright yellow stamens were too tempting to resist, even if it means providing special winter care.

Rock Steady Chaste Tree - Though we're at the cold edge of its hardiness range, we'll treat this Vitex like a butterfly bush, expecting it to die back to the ground each winter but resprout for summer bloom. Its texture—something between catmint and butterfly bush—adds diversity to our garden palette.

Design Principles for Shrub Placement

As we arrange these new additions in our garden, we're following several key design principles:

1. Contrasting textures - Placing plants with different leaf forms next to each other, like the broad leaves of oakleaf hydrangea against the delicate, divided foliage of Japanese maple.
2. Color echoes and contrasts - Using the deep burgundy of Kodiak Jet Black to play against chartreuse foliage, or positioning red-stemmed dogwoods near white birches for winter drama.
3. Maintenance considerations - Placing low-maintenance plants in hard-to-reach areas, like the oakleaf hydrangea at the top of our waterfall.
4. Plant density - Positioning plants close enough that they'll eventually touch, reducing weed pressure and helping retain soil moisture.
5. Natural integration with hardscape - Using Montana Moss juniper to soften the crest of our waterfall rocks and Tough Stuff Aha hydrangeas to blur the transition between rocks and plantings.

Looking Ahead

With such a diverse collection of shrubs, our garden will have even more structure, color, and interest throughout the seasons. We're particularly excited about the combination of textures around our pondless waterfall—from the weeping Japanese maple to the oakleaf hydrangea, Montana Moss juniper, and Tough Stuff Aha hydrangeas.

As these shrubs mature, they'll create a more layered, established look for our garden while requiring less maintenance than annual or perennial plantings. The mix of flowering shrubs, colorful foliage plants, and structural evergreens ensures there's something beautiful to see in every season.

Stay tuned for updates as we plant these specimens and watch them develop throughout the growing season!

Thank you for growing with us!