Last few mystery plants in my garden - Help please...
Since we moved into our new house last year I've been slowly tackling the overgrown garden.
The lady who was here before mowed the lawn and that was all, so for 20 years or so things had grown wild. When we arrived it was covered in ivy, bamboo and weeds.
Since then I've cleared and cut back a lot, and I know quite a few of the plants but could really do with some help on the remainder. I don't want to remove any of these until I know if they are nice plants to keep.
Thanks in advance - if you can name one or more of these:
1. The first mystery plant is a gangley spikey shrub growing on the border.
And below is a close up of the leaves:
2. My second plant is right next to this one. In fact It is growing into number 1 so I may need to remove one of them. Which is better to keep?
And a close up of that one:
3. The next one (below) is a tree that is right next to a Hawthorn. The two are growing out of the same space in the ground so I didn't even realise there were two separate trees there until recently.
One of these trees will have to go. I'm inclined to keep the Hawthorn and get rid of the other one. What do you think?
And a closer shot of the same one:
Any help naming the above would be much appreciated!
Posts
The first plant is a Pyracantha. Gets white flowers and lovely berries in autumn. Can be pruned back quite hard and can be trained against the fence if you want to keep it. Vicious thorns though, but still a lovely plant in the right place.
The second one looks like a Buddleia to me. Gets lots of flowers which attract butterflies. Common name is butterfly bush. Flowers can be white, pink or purple, depending on the variety of the plant.
No idea what the third one is, but I'm sure someone else here will have the answer to that.
Great that you're taming the garden. Keep up the good work!
Yes agree with kleipieper, no idea what the third one I but I would keep it, it looks really interesting.
agree with pyracantha and buddlia and I think the last one is laburnum, it as just finished flowering.
Laburnum is poisonous somthing to bear in mind if you have small children.
Yes, Chrissy the gardener, it is a Laburnum, comes up under list of very poisonous garden plants. We moved when our youngest was a baby, garden was a complete wilderness, lived there 6 weeks before we could even walk down the garden! Honey suckle, - removed, next garden she was 14 months, - pond removed! Course Rhubarb and tomato leaves are poisonous, but we assume kids wouldnt want to eat them. Got lots of poisonous plants, grangchildren told not to touch, and not to pick or eat anything without my say so. When they were very young, made sure they never saw me pick any soft fruit, in case!
Just to add that you can also cut the Buddleia back hard if you want to improve it's size and shape. They are pretty tough and will sprout out happily from the stumps. We used to have one that grew 4-6 feet each year so it had a good hard prune every spring. Worth keeping though for the butterflies. It is often known as the Butterfly Bush
PS It is a good idea to keep all your questions about this garden in one thread. It helps you and others to look back and see what else has been said and what other plants etc you have.
I agree with other posts so far. The Buddleia will flower soon, so you might as well let it do its stuff and see how you like it. Later (winter or next Spring) it can be cut back really hard and it will come up a bit less leggy. You could also take softwood cuttings from it any time now and start again with a new, more manaegeble plant.
Pyrocanthus will have red berries soon, so again you might as well enjoy it before any cutting back.
Great. Many thanks everyone for the advice on these plants. I really appreciate it.
So I have Pyracantha, Buddleia and a Laburnum tree.
Given that the Laburnam is so crowded in, and is poisonous I think I will cut that one down. I've heard it's best to wait until autumn so the roots can be killed with SBK at the same time?
I'm looking forward to seeing the Buddleai flower now! I'll keep that and the Pyracantha and just prune hard next Spring.
Thanks!
Daryl - Thanks so much for the help. As for keeping all my garden questions in one place, I thought that might become a bit unwieldy. But if that is best for continuity then I'll post future questions onto my garden design thread, as that's where I am posting updates on my garden as it (slowly) gets better.
i find it's best to start a new thread if you have a question otherwise not everyone will be interested if title says:
dominoes garden pics for eg.
when you are really 'requesting a plant id' but the title says 'dominoes garden'
so post your questions where you like 