hydrangeas! and gardenias!

You would need to look up hardiness, since I'm not completely sure about zone 5, but I love mock orange, deutzia, pearl bush, lorapetalum, snowball bush, butterfly bush...

I love the old fashioned shrubs!

Oh how I wish Lorapetalum would grow in zone 5! My sister has it in her garden in FL and it's wonderful.

Let's see...I have spirea, lots of differently colored leaves available now I love the lime green colored ones, can't think of the name right now.

Peonies, korean lilac, old fashioned lilac, weeping cherry, sand cherry, Forsythia, Butterfly bush, wieglia, flowering almond.

Most shrubs will bloom for a short while and then just be plain old leaves but I try to surround them with other things that will take over later and just use their greenery for a back drop.

MeMo

I'm not sure of their hardiness in Z5, but 2 of my favorites are flowering quince and fringe flower. I'm also a big fan of barberry because of their gorgeous coloring.

For winter interest, I like possumhaw holly and nandina. Both produce brightly colored berries in the winter that really pop out at you!

Marilyn

My favorite is Variegated Weigela. Then Butterfly Bush, Redbud (well that's a tree) and hydrangeas (however I do not like the bright blue which seems to be the only ones that ever grow around here, lots of pine trees/acidic soil I guess).

snowball bush, hibiscus, lilac, roses and more roses.

Be Safe, Rach

How about sambucus? There's a dark leaf one now with a fillagree leaf. Scrumptious!
And smoke bush. It grows very tall, but I cut mine back each year so it grows to 8'. You can cut them back farther and they will grow even smaller.
How about colorful dogwood shrubs with yellow or red twigs.

GGG

Caryopteris is pretty, blooms here late summer/early fall so it's a good "bridge" plant for me. Plus, it roots very easily (like butterfly bush), so you only need to buy one if you can wait a year or so for more. I believe they are hardy to Zone 5.

GGG, I bought four Sambucus shrubs this year (of different sorts) after I saw one of the darker filigree types with berries on a field trip to Edible Landscaping, gorgeous and tasty and worth wading through a mound of wineberries to see close up. The flowers smell so good!

Maybe just hardy for you, and not very showy (but a fave of mine) is Euonymus americana, aka 'hearts-a-bustin'. It blends in until fall, when the seed pods (sort of dark pink or even hot pink) open and show off the red seeds. In the winter, the naked branches stay a nice green. They make nice understory "filler".

Baptisia! Takes a few years to really get going and is a herbaceous shrub, but they are gorgeous in flower, have nice pods, and the leaves on some (most?) are blue-green. Also drought-resistant.

Has anyone mentioned Clethra yet? They like a little moisture, but are very pretty and most smell sweet.

I have some viburnums mixed in with Fothergilla (for no particular reason). Fothergillas are very pretty also and most have a light scent (at least).

Kerria japonica is pretty and is another shrub that has green willowy branches all winter. They seem to take a year or two to take off. I like the single flowering ones better.

Sweetspire (Itea virginica) likes some moisture, but will do okay without. The blooms smell very nice and the leaves are gorgeous in the fall.

St John's Wort. Might be a little "spready" for some, but mine seem to stay in place. One species I have stays green most of the year, the others die back. Very pretty yellow flowers and bees love them. (Maybe not so good if you don't want bees.)

Azarole (Crataegus sp), a sort of Hawthorn, is a taller shrub or small tree (about 10'?) and is yet another one with a pretty green bark. Flowers and has fruit (edible, but probably more as jelly).

Bush cherries, highbush cranberries, currants, gooseberries, and the shrubby versions of juneberries (serviceberries) are other good fruit bearing shrubs that might be hardy for you. The highbush cranberries maybe are more edible to birds, they have sour fruit. Wolfberry bushes should also be hardy there. The fruit is tart and tasty, but the shrubs aren't exactly beautiful.

I like everyone else's suggestions too, especially mock orange. I'm sure you already know this, but if possible smell before you buy. Believe it or not, I received a scentless mock orange.

Same with Calycanthus floridus (sweet shrub), which I think is hardy there too. Not a great beauty, but one with nicely-scented flowers can be smelled a city block away. Yum!

Lindera benzoin (spicebush) is a shrub with smelly leaves. They can grow large, but grow slowly and can be chopped back. They do well in shade. I like to pluck a leaf to smell when I'm out back. The smell is almost like lemongrass to me, but J doesn't care for it. They taste good in tea too (to me anyway). Male and female plants are needed for fruit set.

I can't think of anything else off hand that might be hardy there that everyone else hasn't mentioned.

You're located in my old stomping grounds. I say a resounding YES for peony. Not only do I count them as a soft shrub, but I envy the fact you can grow them so beautifully. Even after flowering, their foliage is so rich and rewarding. You have no idea the depth of peony envy.

Wow - so many ideas!

A bunch of things were mentioned that I was already familiar with, but a bunch I'd never heard of! The new sambucus (elderberry) variety Black Lace looks cool.

One of my old neighbors had caryopteris. Very pretty, but dies back in the winter.

I'd already planned for baptisia, but had counted it as a perennial. ;)

Fringe flower apparently is not hardy to zone 5.

And can I say, I'm very excited to finally plat peonies? I didn't at the old house, because I'd heard they take a while to get establised (probably not any longer than I lot of stuff I planted!) and didn't think we'd be there that long. This should be the 12-15 year house, so I'll definitely have peonies!

I love fragrant flowers, so besides roses (my favorite) I love mock orange and there are some wonderful smelling viburnums like judii, carlesii, korean spice and burkwoodii. Also, I love the scent of daphne. Carol Mackie is a beauty with evergreen variegated foliage and one of the hardier types. Then I love the native azaleas that are fragrant with a spicey unique scent. Buddlea for fragrance and attracting butterflies and bees. There is nothing that says cottage-y to me than walking through a garden and getting wafts of delicious fragrance!

Lilac by far! I am emotionally attached to it. it smells like my childhood memories...
~Natalie

Uh - that post above should've said boltonia, not baptisia!

Dh is the fragrance person in the family, btw...

My cottage style of gardening is quite eclectic, to say the least, so I use a lot of shrubs which aren't typically considered cottagey, but do well in my overall scheme of things and/or can handle my climate.

Roses come first on my list, especially antique ones and a few Austins. I'm not partial to hybrid teas and do not grow any. For an old fashioned look I love and have hydrangeas, mock orange, Mexican mock orange, lilac, lavender, sage and holly. Not so traditional, but doing a good job of providing year round interest, I grow firethorn, strawberry tree, dodonea, mahonia, grevilea, nandina, pieris, oleander, pittosporum tobira, New Zealand tea tree, etc. My favorite group of shrubs, other than roses, are the viburnums. I grow both evergreen (v. tinus) and deciduous (v.opulus). Wish I had the room for more, as they are virtually carefree plants, provide year round interest and some are sweetly scented, as stated above. The evergreen ones are also liked by the birds - I have a blackbird nest in one of my v.tinus (laurustinus).

Eduarda

Wow. Lots of great suggestions. Kent, especially, pointed out several shrubs that I was about to write about.
Clethra are great shrubs and can take shade.
Fothergilla have really cool "bottle brush-like" flowers and incredible fall color. slow growers, though.
I just planted some Itea in my yard this past fall. Great fall color on those.
I am rather fond of Oakleaf Hydrangea. They like morning sun/afternoon shade. Really cool branching and bark. Huge flowers, and great fall color.

Mrmorton - How does fothergilla do by you? I was reading that it likes acidic soil, similar to azaleas. Up by me at least, soil tends to be alkaline, and I haven't seen many happy-looking azaleas around here. So, that tends to make me nervous.

Irene

I don't know how viburnum "Spring Bouquet" would do in your zone but it stays evergreen, goes through our frequent low temps in the teens and occasional single digits, and laughs at frost and snow. It has pretty white flowers and equally pretty blue berries, plus it smells divine!

Also, can you grow iberis? I love this perennial for it's evergreen nature and pretty white flowers. There are new varieties that get to the size of small shrubs and look really nice towards the front of beds. Some of them even bloom again with some light shearing, usually in late summer/early fall.

Diana

Don't know about your zone, but for here:

Oakleaf hydrangea
'Spring Bouquet' vibernum
'Pink Gruss an Aachen' rose

Randy

Since we're talking about shrubs I would like to know if anyone who has acidic soil and grows hydrangeas if you have any luck growing the pink kind. Almost any hydrangea in my area tend to be the bright blue color and I read that even if you lime it it can be very hard to lighten it because it just takes a small bit of root to reach acidic soil and turn the color. Is this true? Has anyone grown them in acidic soil and gotten a different color? I guess I should ask this question in the other forum as well.

I'm in zone 6 so you could probably get away with some of the same shrubs I have in my garden.
I like Rhodie's and Azaleas for winter interest. Neither lose thier leaves and the Azalea's folliage (depending on cultivar) turns a rusty red.

Burning bush for Fall and Winter interest

Butterfly bush for Spring and Summer. I don't necessarily care for how they look during the winter time, however don't cut them down until early Spring.

Peony for Spring flowers

Crepe Myrtle, Viburnum, Redtwig dogwood, Roses, Holly bush, Camelia. I also like to use different types of grasses in my garden too. They make great winter interest and also provide nesting material for local birds.

H

sandl, you can grow crepe myrtles in Kansas? What variety do you grow? I am right on the line of zone 8a & 7b and my crepe myrtles frequently get winter freeze damage here ... sometimes freeze back all the way to the roots after an especially cold winter. For example, winter before last, one of my 20 ft tall 'Natchez' crepe myrtles froze back all the way to the ground.

Randy

I have acidic soil here in S. Arkansas and I am growing two pink hydrangeas quite well. Here are two pictures of one of them though not very clear:

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I second the vote for hydrangeas. Also, I'm dying for a Viburnum - 'blue muffin.'

"Mrmorton - How does fothergilla do by you? I was reading that it likes acidic soil, similar to azaleas. Up by me at least, soil tends to be alkaline, and I haven't seen many happy-looking azaleas around here. So, that tends to make me nervous."

I had 2 Dwarf Fothergilla, planted not very far apart from each other. One gets about half day sun, and is planted in my front garden. The other just an hour or 2 of sun. Last fall I moved the latter due to it doing nothing. I almost shovel pruned it, but ended up placing it in a shady spot in the side garden.
You can see both in this pic from last spring:
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Notice on the left all the flowers. Now look to the right side of the pic, towards the back. The other bush is there, but with no flowers. That is the one I moved.
This is the incredible fall color Fothergilla is supposed to have:
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Last fall, they just turned a weak yellow and dropped.
As you can see, I'm still trying to figure them out myself!

Lilacs. Once-blooming old roses such as gallicas and albas - extremely hardy. My favorites for cold climates, or just about anywhere else, come to think of it.

Rosefolly

Mr Morton - Cool photos! I'm getting intrigued by the idea of fothergilla for the front of the house...

And Rosefolly - I love Gallicas, too, though haven't planted any yet. I'm definitely planning on roses!

We have a lavender Rose of Sharon in front of our home. It was planted by the previous owners. It was only a foot or two high when we moved in, about 4 1/2 yrs ago. During our first year here, I whacked it back to reshape what little of it there was and now it is taller than I am and much happier and prettier. The poor thing was planted right next to the house, though, and these things can get to be 10 ft tall and 6 ft wide. Some people don't like them because they leaf out late and bloom late. I didn't like it at first, either, and my husband was always threatening to cut it down. But it has grown on us and now everyone who sees it wants a twig of it to root for themselves.