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What is this bush/tree/plant?

iona said:
What is this I accidentallied the other day, please? Someone left her in a bin bag on the pavement with a sign that just said her name was Hyacinth and she needed a new home, so obvs I had to rescue her :rolleyes:
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looks somewhat like a hydrangea :)
 
gentlegreen said:
looks somewhat like a hydrangea :)
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I would say it definitely is. Lazy person’s way of finding out the pH of their soil - plant it out and wait for it to flower - more bluey purple - acid - more pinky - alkaline.

It flowers on last year’s growth, so don’t prune it til after it’s flowered, if you want flowers this year.

Unkillable. (This is not a challenge...)
 
Ta. There's actually a couple of hydrangeas I look after at work so I really should've recognised it but I don't like them and my brain refuses to hang on to any information I don't find interesting :oops:
 
O iona, I was a hydrangea refusnik for the longest time... and still wouldn't wish for a nophead type...but my goodness, some of the paniculata, lacecaps and gorgeous oak leaved variety are lovely. I recently bought one called Hayes starburst hydrangea. I cycle in and out of these likes and dislikes and am often amazed at the sheer number of 180 degree turnabouts I make. After years of loathing euphorbias, I find I am an enthuriatic convert - not least because I figured I had finally reached a level of sophistication to fully appreciate green flowers and foliage.
 
struggling to see the flowers, gentlegreen, but there is something of osmanthus heterophyllus. Cannot think immediately of a rhodie with serrated leaves. Did wonder about kalmia but colour?
Scale is problematic for me as I cannot really get an idea of size at all.
 
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campanula said:
struggling to see the flowers, gentlegreen, but there is something of osmanthus heterophyllus. Cannot think immediately of a rhodie with serrated leaves. Did wonder about kalmia but colour?
Scale is problematic for me as I cannot really get an idea of size at all.
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my first thought was pieris, but I don't think I've ever actually seen one close up.
leaves are a bit rhodi/azalea in scale. flowers def a bit ericaceous. / mahonia-ish.
it was the massive thorns that caught my attention.
I'll try to get better photos.
It's recently been heavily pruned.

edit. that's odd .. had it in my head that berberis / mahonia were in the ericacea.
 
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No, not pieris - the flower racemes are much droopier and floriferous. Cripes,my eyes! I didn't even notice the thorns. Berberis julianae has serrated leaves and those stem thorns - a bit thrown by the colour which is generally yellowish but the architecture certainly fits, so I think prunus is probably on the button.
Would agree that berberis and mahonia are both calcifuge but are not in the heath family (ericacea). Just looked and they are in the berberidaceae (which figures, I guess).
 
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I think I may have left this thinking it looked nice, however now I see it has embarked on a campaign of spreading its seeds as much as it can! What it is and maybe I should dig it up plus all its children? It is in one of the sunnier parts of my borders.

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smmudge said:
I think I may have left this thinking it looked nice, however now I see it has embarked on a campaign of spreading its seeds as much as it can! What it is and maybe I should dig it up plus all its children? It is in one of the sunnier parts of my borders.

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I think what you have there is the Blessed Herb, or wood aven. Used in herbal medicine for its astringent properties and for stomach upsets. Also wards off evil spirits. I could well be wrong though so don’t go making any tea from it on my identification!
 
prunus said:
I think what you have there is the Blessed Herb, or wood aven. Used in herbal medicine for its astringent properties and for stomach upsets. Also wards off evil spirits. I could well be wrong though so don’t go making any tea from it on my identification!
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Oh that sounds lovely. Unfortunately my wife also asked Facebook and everyone there said it's wood aven but also an annoying weed, so it's getting dug up today and replaced with sweet peas we need to plant out. I told her what you said about it helping stomach upsets and warding off evil spirits, but I think it just diminished her opinion of the boards somewhat :(
 
Yep, wood avens. It is a terrible seeder, but is also the main food plant of the orange tip butterfly so maybe watch out for the small yellow flowers and behead them before they get a chance to set seed.
 
looks like a phormium. Back in the 90s, these were everywhere. The p.cookianum tricolour species grow to about 120cm and can have some impressive stripes - 'Sundowner', 'Cream Delight' and the gothic 'Platt's Black', for example. The much larger (and drabber) phormium tenax can reach over 2m, with 3m flower spikes. Personally, I dislike them intensely, not least because of a propensity to harbour mealy bugs in the blade axils.
 
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Probably isn't but looks like pendulous sedge, too. There was one in the hedge over the road from me and I hadn't realized how invasive they are - absolute thugs. I must have let it seed because the field next to me had hundreds of the little fuckers come up that I've been pulling out over the last couple of year because if they seed my garden's going to be full of them :mad:



A useful saying to tell grasses, sedges and rushes apart (although this is not strictly true for all species) is: 'sedges have edges, rushes are round and grasses are hollow right up from the ground'. (woodlandtrust)
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two sheds said:
View attachment 264355

Probably isn't but looks like pendulous sedge, too. There was one in the hedge over the road from me and I hadn't realized how invasive they are - absolute thugs. I must have let it seed because the field next to me had hundreds of the little fuckers come up that I've been pulling out over the last couple of year because if they seed my garden's going to be full of them :mad:
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Leaves look wider on what's been planted. Volunteer gardeners are in on Thursdays so I'll ask them. Bloody horrible whatever they are.
 
The ones I'm killing on sight aren't variegated. There's also large clumps of them in the valley at the back of me which isn't promising :(.
 
Yes I'm doing that too :( I'm just pulling the flowers and leaves though and hoping I'm weakening them for subsequent years, how the fuck do the bulbs burrow down that deep? Getting them out will destroy the plants around them.
 
I've dug most stuff up and replanted. Unfortunately we're hitting the minus 3's here and some newly positioned plants have taken a hit :mad:. Looks like next week will still be in the minus here.
Last year I threw a load of the bluebells in a bucket, barely any soil on the roots and they're coming into flower!
 
Ah, spanish bluebells. I have worked in a few gardens where these have colonised (horrendously). My current rectory garden has heaps of the bastards but until I have something to put in the vacated space, I have been slow to shift them. I am using liquid death on the fuckers (along with the equally invasive three cornered leek), then a deep dig over. I will probably sow some annual zinnias or the like, because it is a 2-3 year job, getting rid.
 
prunus said:
Unkillable. (This is not a challenge...)
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Really? :( I have one left in the garden, I left it cos it blocked the neighbour seeing my front doorstep but she's gone and I want the feffing hydrangea gone too. I'm guessing if I totally cut it back and then axe the feck out of it ti will die the same as the rhubabrb did, no?
 
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