Leycesteria formosa

[Val]

Has anyone got this shrub?, other names pheasant berry or Himalayan honeysuckle,I rather liked the look of it in the garden centre and it said it was good for wildlife but I don't want to buy a thug, from what I've read it seems okay but experience is the best advice.

[Val]

[Doris_Pinks]

I love mine, and the birds gorge themselves on the berries, so you do tend to find them appearing around the garden! (nothing a good weed wont get rid of)  I chop mine about to tame it,at various times of the year, and it doesn't seem to mind.

[Val]

Brilliant thanks Doris, I love getting double use plants, those that I like and the birds. I was in the garden centre with a bit of time and money in my purse... fatal combination as we all know, thought I'd get some flowers bees and butterflies like, so stood and watched them for a while, the bees loved  coreopsis, so I got some of those, only saw 1 butterfly and that was on a lavender, already got that.

[Doris_Pinks]

Buddelia for the butterflies Val?

[Val]

Its good to get through, thought my computer was out again. next door have a buddelia and it grows a bit big for the spaces I've got, its more perennial flowers I'm after.

[Spurdie]

Hi, Val  :D
I love my himalayan honeysuckles. Anyone who hasn't seen them before asks "Are they some kind of tropical bamboo?"
The bees love the flowers and the birds eat every one of their berries in autumn - song thrush gorges itself EVERY day until they are all gone!
In winter I cut them back to about 5 ft and they form an elegant bamboo like screen to the second part of the garden.
I've never tried sowing the seeds - the birds do it for me - but I would presume you would treat them like yew berries. Wash the sap off, pop them on top of a pot of compost, cover them with vermiculite or gravel, and then leave them outside all winter.
Hope this helps!

[Val]

 8)Thanks Spurdie. I did buy it in the end, I hadn't seen it before in the garden centres and didn't know much about it, but its so pretty and as we all do. like to give nature a helping hand. I've put it out the front but if it does seed around I'll have one out the back as well.I haven't got much that the thrushes eat, blackbirds seem to eat all the berries so I'm hoping the thrush will get his fill now.