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Identification
lovethemall
Posts: 3
Can anyone help identify this plant?The leaves are very reminiscent of honeysuckle - wondering if it's an edible variety? Rampant in my late mother-in-law's garden, which had very little content that was inedible! A heritage item of some sort, 80 years since her family moved there, and as farmers they planted the garden for self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetables. I remember her jams - strawberry, raspberry, rhubarb, blackcurrant - but this? 
0
Posts
One of the hypericums?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Looks like St John's Wort - Hypericum
Mine usually gets covered in rust around this time of year, so I cut it back to the ground - always re-appears
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Hypericum androsaemum (tutsan). I've got one but I wouldn't eat it
, no idea of its toxicity though ???
Can take a hard prune if it gets too big. Chopped mine back to a stump in the spring......it bounced right back, approx 5ft tall again
Thank you so much for your responses! This one is threatening to take over the entire garden, so I think I'll have to remove all but a few.
Good luck with that ... it can be a bit tenacious ... you may need a mattock
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks, everyone - it's good to have a puzzle solved! I'm still wondering how it got there though. I know the family moved there after WWII on a doctor's recommendation, as my mother-in-law's mother suffered severe depression after her eldest son was shot down as a pilot. Given that, as farmers, their lifestyle was all about self-sufficiency to the greatest possible extent, could she have been making some traditional version of the herbal medicine still sold today as an anti-depressant?
They're fairly widespread where I live. I have several in the garden none of which were planted - they just arrived.
Maybe your relatives realised what it was and made use of it
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Definitely hypericum - inodorum I think?
This is one of my favourite shrubs in the garden and I just love them. i think they look pretty good all year round. Cut to around 8 inches early spring then they grow to around 3/4 ft. Pretty yellow flowers early summer then these really lovely berries That last for ages before turning black which I think still look great. The bees love them too. I have peach and red one but want to get one that does pink berries.