Looking for Shrub Perfection

I want shrub perfection for my smallish, suburban landscape.
Pitch me an evergreen shrub that grows into its own shape and holds it - no shearing required. Some that top out at three or five feet will be handy, but how about a few that reach only 18 inches tall? I need bushy, leafy shrubs that look as good in winter as in summer, with nectar for the bees and winter berries for Mockingbirds, Cedar Wax wings and robins.
Exciting color is a plus, but the shrub must thrive in my dirt’s pH. Pest-prone bushes need not apply, because no one around my place wants to spray poisons. In our dry and windy land, some supplemental watering is okay, but never more than twice a week in high summer drought. In fact, a little compost from time to time, a little water and frequent admiring glances are about all I want to donate to shrubdom.
If your needs fit mine, may I suggest one of more of the following hybrid varieties of nandina?
Uh oh, I hear the catcalls... “Boring! Nandina is a garden cliché!”
Well, clichés become clichés when they’re foolproof: Nothing sinks like a stone, few things move as quietly as a mouse and very few shrubs offer the fabulous package available from hybirds of the Nandina, family Berberidaceae, native to India and Eastern Asia. They are common because they are great!
But, you may crave something a little less common, more of a challenge.
You could excavate cubic yards of soil and replace it with pecan shells so you can plant azaleas, then water them with alkaline water daily all summer, watching out for ubiquitous, voracious red spiders.
Or, you could invest in glorious, finicky, thorny roses and spritz them with fungicide every time it rains; but please wear protection and keep kids and pets away from the garden.
Or plant a Blue Atlas cedar near the house, then pick bagworms from really stickery branches year after year, as it outgrows its spot. They get forty feet wide, you know.
Or try some new and unusual hollies. Sure, we’re a borderline climate for those $60 mini-bushes, but some of them might survive.
Had enough?
Why not select a few inexpensive, nandina hybrids, knowing that their mature sizes are as predictable as their easy success in the landscape? When they mature, they deliver carefree, colorful foliage, topped in winter with brilliant, red berries, repaying minimal effort with full season pizazz! That’s shrub perfection.


• Woods Dwarf: 1.5 feet tall, red to maroon fall foliage
• Moonbay and Nana Purpurea: 1.5 or 2.5 feet, rounded, spreads, red fall foliage
• Fire Power: very compact, 2 feet tall/wide, has red-tinged leaves in summer and bright red leaves in winter
• Harbor Dwarf: spreads freely, 2 feet tall, good groundcover. Winter foliage orange to bronzy red
• Nana, Nana Purpurea, Atropurpurea Nana: to 2 feet tall, mottled green foliage, purplish-red in winter, no flower, no fruit
• Lowboy: 3 feet tall, flowers, red berries,red fall foliage
• Gulf Stream or Compacta Nana: slow-growing to 3 to 4 feet, dark blue-green summer foliage, red winter foliage, no berries
• Woods Dwarf: 4 feet, dense, rounded, crimson red foliage in winter
• Compacta: 4 to 5 feet, foliage turns red in fall
• Moyer’s Red: 6 feet, good cold weather red pigment