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Help identifying a bush/tree

welshcakewelshcake Posts: 118
in Plants
I bought a house with a very overgrown garden which I’ve largely ignored for years myself while I’ve been doing house renovations.  I’m now starting to work my way around the garden bit by bit and thinking about tackling one particularly bad area.  

I’m trying to identify the many different trees/bushes before I blindly hack away at them (especially as I’m a novice gardener) but am struggling with this one.  I’ve run it through multiple plant identifier apps getting loads of different results, none of which seem to match.  It’s about 15 ft high now but is also interweaved with giant brambles and possibly an elderflower so it’s hard to know how much of what I can see is this particular bush/tree.  Any ideas?

Posts

  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    Possibly a Griselinia if I've spelt it right.
  • welshcakewelshcake Posts: 118
    Thanks K67.  That was the closest match I could find on one of the plant apps but when I looked at photos online, I wasn't sure
  • Silver surferSilver surfer Posts: 4,719
    Agree with K67...Griselinia littoralis....leaves very distinctive.


    welshcake  You have a beautiful specimen.
    Perthshire. SCOTLAND .
  • Tanty2Tanty2 Posts: 231
    Griselinia is a an NZ native, extremely happy to grow here :)  It can put on about three feet of growth a year but is super happy to be trimmed to whatever dimensions you need.  It's evergreen, tolerant of salt and wind, but it does like to be in a sunny spot.  I'm in Scotland too and use mine for fairly speedy hedging (almost instant privacy!) and they can be planted up to 1.5m apart and will fill in the gaps promptly.  Getting the brambles out might be tricky but is definitely worth a shot otherwise they'll overrun the Griselinia.  They're such a great plant, very useful and a brilliant windbreak :)
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    they're very tolerant of salt spray too. So useful in coastal areas
    Devon.
  • ErgatesErgates Posts: 2,953
    We have a hedge of this, very easy to grow, and prune to required height. And a lovely shade of green.
  • welshcakewelshcake Posts: 118
    Thanks everyone for your helpful information.  Lovely to hear you think it's looking good Silver Surfer, despite my continued neglect :)  I've got a south facing garden and it's in a very sunny spot so that must be helping.  I think there are loads of birds living in it at the moment judging by the noise so I'll wait a few months before cutting it back rather than risk disturbing any nests.  I can partly get into the back of it from the drive so I should be able to tackle the brambles closer to ground level and try to eradicate them at least in the meantime.  
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