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This evergreen shrub can light up the dark corners of a garden. It grows quickly, and its branches are arched and somewhat spiny. Bright yellow,  3- to 4-inch-long leaves splashed are outlined in green. The twigs are a metallic copper color, and the undersides of the leaves are specled with a copper color, too. Tiny white flowers appear under the leaves in fall. They are hard to see, but very fragrant. Small orange fruit appear in spring. -Michael Lee, Fine Gardening issue #119

Autumn olive is a vigorous, deciduous shrub with pale yellow-white bell-shaped flowers to a half-inch long borne in late spring and early summer. Its silvery fruit turns red in fall and attracts birds. Wavy-margined leaves are silvery when they emerge and mature to bright green above.

This tree-like shrub bears pendent clusters of bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers with rose veins in late spring and early summer. In autumn, the foliage turns magnificent shades of orange and red.

This is perhaps the most refined Enkianthus, bearing dainty, white pendulous bells in May. It forms an elegant, rounded shrub to 6 feet with gracefully tiered branches and produces brilliant scarlet color in autumn.

A member of the conifer clan, Ephedra equisetina is commonly called bluestem joint fir due to its finely textured blue stems. In spring, it features a conspicuous froth of yellow blooms that are often followed by red berries. It is perfect for naturalized areas since it reliably spreads.

The familiar burning bush is a dense, flat-topped, deciduous shrub with a rounded, horizontal branching habit. Reddish purple fruit grows beneath the simple, finely toothed, dark green leaves. Foliage turns an extremely showy bright red in autumn. Smaller cultivars exist.

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Because it is a relative of the immensely popular burning bush (E. alatus), it isn't surprising that eastern wahoo has great fall color. This North American native grows as a small tree in the southern part of its range and as a large shrub on the Plains. The bright red of its fall foliage is amplified and extended by abundant clusters of scarlet fruits that persist after the leaves have fallen, providing color even into midwinter. Eastern wahoo is effective as an accent plant or when massed wherever a bold, surprising splash of color is desired.

'Minimus' has smaller leaves than other plants of the species and a very low-growing, spreading habit. This evergreen shrub is best used as a groundcover, but it can climb as a vine if given support. It forms a dense mat of quarter-inch leaves. It may suffer winter burn in cold climates.

Prostrate to mound-forming, vigorous evergreen shrubs have oval, toothed, dark green leaves. Cultivars vary in foliage color and variegation, form, climbing or creeping habit, and fall interest.

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Candelilla forms an upright clump of slender, waxy gray-green stems. Inconspicuous leaves appear on new growth but quickly drop with the first dry spell. Tiny flowers of cream and rosy pink periodically hug the upper portion of the stems throughout the warm season, particularly in response to rain. Candelilla is perfect for narrow planting strips because its stems grow straight up in tight bundles.

A member of the rose family (Rosaceae), Apache plume has single, white, rose-like flowers in a fine-textured shrub up to 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide. Flowering occurs from late spring until late summer, and is followed by clouds of showy, pink, feater-duster-like seed heads that are just as showy as the flowers.

Japanese fatsia has very large, hand-shaped glossy leaves that glow in the shade. New leaves fan out on stiff stems all along the ringed trunks. The flower clusters of older fatsias attract bees. -Nellie Neal, Regional Picks: Southeast, Fine Gardening issue #127

This perennial shrub or small tree has an upright form that reaches heights of up to 10 feet. It blooms before grayish-green foliage emerges. Leaves mature to bright green and contrast beautifully with one-year-old black bark. Small, attractive black berries appear in autumn.

Like other cultivars of this genus, 'Courtasol' is as tough as nails. The biggest difference from the rest, however, lies in its form. The stems reach to only 18 inches tall before arching down to the ground and running along to yield a 5-foot-wide spread. Its grapefruit yellow flowers appear in early spring.

Striking, extra-large yellow blooms cover each stem from base to tip in early spring.

Its blaze of yellow flowers is surely one of the first harbingers of spring. Forsythia are widely recognized for their utility in a shrub border, a bank, or for hedging, and their light to deep yellow, four-petaled flowers.

These shrubs are beautiful, compact, and easy to grow, making them obvious choices for mixed borders, foundation plantings, and naturalizing. The fragrant, bottlebrush flowers are petalless and sweetly-scented.

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Fragrant, cylindrical inflorescences are made up of long, white filaments, and open before the leaves in spring. In autumn, the foliage shades range from blood red to blazing yellow, and every shade in between.

This cultivar of a favorite fall shrub has the same great spring flowers as the rest of the species. But its brilliant fall color remains longer and later than its cousins, holding its strong orange, red, and yellow tones into late November or even early December. 'Jane Platt' also features a mounding habit rather than the upright habit common to the species. Fothergillas are often recommended for shade, but this one is tough enough to be grown between rocks in hot, full sun.