Shrubs in general tend to be less maintenance than perennials for many of the reasons you mention - no need for deadheading, dividing, staking, cutting back or cleaning up seasonally and typically require less watering once established due to wider, more extensive root systems. But to decrease maintenance even further, select those shrubs which are recognized as being fully hardy and well suited to your climate and growing conditions, drought tolerant (once established), disease and pest resistant and not requiring excessive pruning to maintain health or size.

Check with your local extension office for their recommendations and visit some of your better local retail nurseries in season for ideas. Ideally you would want to include some broadleafed evergreen shrubs and/or dwarf conifers as well to provide winter interest and textural variation.

And I wouldn't necessarily want to eliminate ALL herbaceous perennials - some are quite a bit less maintenance than others. A mixed border that includes a variety of shrubs, perennials, grasses, groundcovers and even a few small trees generally will provide year long interest and color with relatively low maintenance.

Here is a link that might be useful: UMN extension office topical guide to shrub info

I am in zone 6. Zone is important.

The maintenance-free garden begins here with azaleas and rhododendrons. They may not like your soil if it is alkaline.

Viburnums, hollies and hydrangeas are also working. Some of the smaller, mounding shrubs like Barberry and Japanese Holly look good too although there aren't flowers of note.

Shrub roses like Knock Out are easy and provide lots of bloom.

Some perennials like hosta, black-eyed susan and daylilly require little care.

Hydrangeas (paniculatas)!!! They are so easy to maintain and absolutely beautiful to look at, and mighty hardy too!

I'm in zone 4 Minnesota. I did some major perennial editing and am slowly adding shrubs and conifers to my main gardens and in gaps here and there in mixed borders.

I quite like Birds Nest Spruce, Blue Star Juniper, any of the Ninebarks, Vibernum "Emerald Triumph", "Crimson Pygmy" Barberry, and Spirea Japonica "Alpina" - a small leaved variety that put out another flush of bloom the end of Sept. I'm giving a couple of "Green Mountain" boxwood and a "Merry Berry" holly a test.

In a big area, I put in an Austrian pine and some Black Hills Spruce to eventually fill in gaps from old trees being taken down.

Alpine Currant is a good all purpose shrub, either clipped into a hedge or left natural - red orange berries. And there's always Mock Orange or any of the spireas - Bridal Wreath, Anthony Waterer; "Pink Beauty" potentilla; Actaea Pachypoda (Baneberry); burning bush; bleeding heart; lilacs.

The "Northern Lights" series of azaleas do beautifully. They're cold hardy to zone 3 and flower bud hardy to minus 45F. They're quite fragrant and start bloomning about mid-May in a typical spring. Good fall color, leaves turn maroon to red about this time each season. The height and spread can be 8-10', but I have only one that has reached that size in 20 some years.

Hostas, salvias, Veronicas, nepetas, platycodon, phlox, peonies, daylilies, Oriental poppies, coral bells, lilies, tall bearded iris, Siberian Iris are all pretty much minimal care perennials. I don't do roses, but we do have the added benefit of a climate that does not support Japanese beetles.

I recommend Pavement series of roses (I have purple and foxi) for good, hardy roses that bloom most of the summer. No need to deadhead since the flowers produce nice fruit and still continue to flower.

I love the northern lights azaleas, but they do need good drainage and acidic soil.

Major wholesale supplier Bailey nursery is in St. Paul. You might want to look at what they are producing and how it is depicted by them. Some of their products appear at retail outlets way out here (they do also have an Oregon operation). The 'Bailtiger' sumac, for instance became frequently seen soon after being put out by them.

Thank you all for your responses. I live in the Twin Cities so zone 4 is what I need. I am real excited now to check out shrubs to plant next spring. Keep the ideas coming. I welcome them all.

Plant some blueberries for sure. Spring blossoms, summer fruit, fall color, basically maintenance free. Just plant two or three varieties for good pollination and provide acidic soil/fertilizer.

Berberis vulgaris 'Royal Cloak' - Will remain dark purple until frost. Good with Artemisia 'Powis Castle' (silver) or Spiraea thunbergii 'Ogon Yellow' (yellow).
Ilex crenata - tough holly for any need. Looks like Buxus but for its alternate leaves.

Perovskia atriplicifolia - excellent in winter snow.

Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Flake' - tremendous flowers; morning sun, afternoon shade.

Spiraea japonica 'Magic carpet' - tough, will reseed some. Diversity of colors according to the amount of sun.

Virburnum plicatum tomentosum 'Shasta' - cut out any vertical shoots.

Weigela florida 'Aureovariegata' - remove a third of the oldest shoots each year. Better with late afternoon shade.

Many of the above shrubs will not look great in nursery pots, but once in the ground, become drought tolerant.

I would provide permanent bones in your garden by using conifers and broadleaf evergreens for structure. Winter lasts a long time up there and keeping the basic form visible is a definite plus when you're out there filling the birdfeeders or simply looking out the window.

Second layer would be small flowering trees here and there, and larger shrubs next to fill out the background. Then add the very focal smaller shrubs, darling dwarf conifers, and selected perennials with maybe a highly featured patch of annuals.

Winter is a great time to sketch out the area and get the balance figured out, any views blocked, and small bench and/or bird feeding areas sited. Then think about flowering times- you always want something happening and I personally prefer to stay within a group of colors so I don't have red blooming next to pink. Don't forget fall leaf color, too- it can be a great feature! Rocks- either singly or in groups can be great focal points as can a carefully placed fallen log or tree stump.

I love planning new areas!!!

next spring when the weather breaks, take a drive west on Hwy 5 toward Chanhassen to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. They have great displays of various trees and shrubs that grow in Minnesota as well as annual, perennial, grasses, roses, etc. A great place to get ideas.
Marshall

couple years ago I was driving up the West River Parkway along the Mississippi River north of Minnehaha Park and saw some drop dead gorgeous rose colored azaleas in bloom. One wouldn't normally think about azaleas in the Twin Cities and I would imagine they were the deciduous Northern Lights varieties. Also in bloom that we don't see much of here in Ohio was viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga' with its reddish new growth and white and dull pinkish maroon lacecap type flowers.

So you might want to take a look at those during your over the winter planning.
Marshall

I have similar temperatures to you and acid, fine-sandy to loamy soil. I'm not sure if your soils will be similar in pH and texture. Some smaller fruiting & flowering trees that I like and should be fully hardy for you:
Cornus alternifolia - Pagoda dogwood - Lovely spring flowers (sort of lacy, not like typical flowering dogwood), summer dark fruit with bright red stems that when ripe attracts the birds; nice, though not spectacular, fall color; beautiful winter silhouette
Ilex verticillata - Winterberry holly - a deciduous holly that has bright crimson berries after the leaves fall. 'Winter Red' holds the berries the longest, according to research I've read. Be sure to plant the appropriate male in an unobtrusive place in order to get berries.
Some of the smaller crabapples have lovely spring flowers and colorful autumn fruit. Some varieties will hold their fruit until early spring when they will attract many birds to gobble up the fruit: cedar waxwings, robins & grouse all have visited our tree. If disease is a problem in your area, research disease-resisitent varieties.

I also love hardy hydrangeas which all have long-lasting flowers. There are H. paniculatas, like 'Pink Diamond', 'Pinky Winky', Limelight, etc. I also have 'Annabelle', an H. arborescens, and there are several other arborescens varieties. Flowers of all these are in the pale green/white/pink range, and most move from pale green through to white &/or pink. The H. macrophyllas that bloom on old and new wood like 'All Summer Beauty', 'Dooley', 'Penny Mac', and 'Endless Summer' continuously throw out new blooms from early summer until frost. Here in central NH they sometimes die back to the ground in years when it gets cold while there isn't snow cover, but they resprout and bloom on the new wood. Well mulched I think they would be fine for you, since we get as low as -22 some years, though not every year. A good resource on Hydrangeas in general is the book by Michael Dirr, though you will have to ignore a lot of plants that won't be hardy for you - maybe you can borrow it from the library.

As others mentioned above, the 'Northern Lights' series of azaleas (deciduous) are hardy as well as some of the deciduous azaleas from Weston nurseries in MA. In addition to nice spring flowers some have colorful fall foliage. As noted above they need acid soil. The PJM group of small leafed evergreen rhododendrons may be hardy enough for you as well.

Below I've given you a link to a discussion of clematis in the shrub border. They can be grown on obelisks or scrambling across the ground or can be guided to grow into shrubs or some combination of these growth styles. I grow type 3 clematis and trim them back in the late fall, so the obelisks provide winter interest, at least until the snow gets so deep they are no longer visible.

If deer are an issue in your area, choose your evergreens carefully. Both yew and arborvitae are favorite winter deer forage around here and so are typically misshapen or even eaten down to bare stubs. Some of the smaller selections of spruce are nice and don't seem bothered by deer. There are some small or weeping hemlock selections that might suit you as well.

I also have and like a couple kinds of clethra, several native viburnums (dentatum, cassinoides, and acerifolium), some old-fashioned once-blooming roses, including rugosas which have decorative hips and scent that is stunning, elderberry (Sambucus), weigela (nice flowers and some have nice leaf colors), Viburnum plicatum tomentosum (though I'm not sure this will be fully hardy for you), Physocarpus (ninebark) 'Coppertina', Aronia (chokeberry), Amelanchier (serviceberry or shadbush), some of the hardier magnolias, high bush blueberry (flowers, fruit and great fall color), lilacs, and an old-fashioned hardy forsythia. The leaves of my red-twigged variegated dogwood are pretty disease prone, so I'm not sure I'd recommend this.

For additional seasonal color, I plant bulbs (especially iris reticulata, daffodils, alliums, and early species crocus) in my shrub borders as well as cranberry as a non-aggressive ground cover and several low-maintenance perennials: Siberian irises, iberis (perennial candytuft), a select few campanulas, heucheras, tiarellas, hostas, variegated solomon's seal (Polygonatum), cimicifuga AKA actea, Baptisia, and lady's mantle (Alchemilla) among others. These are all quite hardy, not fussy in my garden, have foliage that looks nice throughout the growing season, take little or no deadheading or even have decorative seed pods and won't spread viciously, either through seeds or underground.

I start my shrub borders by piling several inches of compost or well-composed manure on top of the soil and plant into it and the native soil, however deep the rootballs are. After planting I mulch with several layers of newspaper topped by 3 or 4 inches of wood chip mulch, which gets renewed with lighter layers every few years as needed, keeping the mulch away from shrub trunks. I keep the beds well-edged and only have to weed for a few minutes a couple times of year. I used to dig the compost in, but this works as well or better and is lots less work!

Have fun planning and planting the new border!

Babs