Do you have ground space for such plants? The honeysuckle is a just a giant weed, but Callicarpa (beauty berry) is a lovely native that makes beautiful purple berries, not hard to find where they sell shrubs/trees. A China doll tree shouldn't be hard to find. If you have a store nearby that sells EA plants, they've been available often when I visit WM. Just wish I could understand the scheduling, when they get new plants in (and, of course, that there was somewhere else to shop for plants.)

Here, Caryopteris clandonensis is grown as a dieback shrub. It is very similar to buddleia in that it is going to have significant dieback during a normal winter no matter what the gardener decides to do with it, so yes, we are growing it as a herbaceous perennial. The resulting stems are very thin, but strong enough to be upright, and support the flowers.

It's all good, Gal. I've oft noted the less than clearcut "northerlieness" of varied locations, like your Maine example.........and depending on which type of map one is viewing, the various types of distortions necessary to fitting all the land masses on the flat sheet of paper.....can even distort this further. But no matter. Whaas, I like Symphoricarpos too, although I do know of some folks having that plant in their gardens wishing they didn't, what with the vigorously stoloniferous habit it has. Guess it all goes down to where you have it and what you are trying to accomplish. But you're right-it is very reminiscent of the shrub genus in discussion here. I'd be more inclined to use coralberry where I wanted straight-up colonization of a portion of a site, in other words, a more naturalistic planting. I think it is native to our part of the world as well. For that matter, the white-fruited Symphoricarpos alba is quite nice too. Rina, I have to admit, I see Toronto and other Canada words in your posts and get the idea we're in similar climactic conditions, but we're still colder here, never rising above a Z5 designation. Then there's years like last year, where cold-hardiness is really put to the test here. We shall see. This is a fun topic for discussion, but that's really about all it is at this point! +om

UPDATE: i did 60 days cold moist strat as Select Landscapes Iowa suggested in peat moss in the fridge then planted them under light in my basement in March in 2x2 cells. got nearly full germination probably between 30-60 days from planting. Thined them out leaving one per cell, grew them to 2-3 inches height then potted up into 4' pots and placed them outside in morning sun with no care except very occasional watering. heres how they looked mid July before I potted up to gallon pots: One seemed more highly branched than the others so I marked it with a stick, another one is already flowering. very happy with the results so far, I'll update again maybe next year if I can overwinter them successfully.