Help me identify our 'bee tree'

[MonaChopsis]

Hiya; we have an amazing tree in our garden that the bumblebees love, but sadly it is going to be cut down in the next year or two. I'd like to plant another one in a better place, so the bees won't be too deprived!! Can anyone tell me what it is?

Some sort of choisya?

Do the leaves smell when you crush one? Like bay kind of? Choisya. The bees really do love it dont they.

That does look like a chosyia, we had one in our old garden.

I don't think it's a choisya Usually their leaves are held in a triad formation, slightly different to the ones in your photo Also the leaves are more rounded /less pointed at the tips

Don't know what yours is though! Maybe a garden centre could identify it if you took a cutting in

Plant Net app thinks it's pyracanthus

It doesn't look smothered enough for pyracantha!

Is you tree armed with absolutely deadly thorns, OP?

My Weigela has ruby flowers but bees love it. Could yours be a white variety? possibly www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/19099/i-Weigela-middendorffiana-i/Details

See also
www.gardenersworld.com/plants/weigela-middendorffiana/

Thanks all for the guesses, but I don't think any of those are quite right! There's a choiysa underneath it to the left in the first attached photo, and it's leaves are quite different. No thorns, so I don't think it's a pyrocanthus, and the flower structure is different from a weigela. Have attached another couple of photos to show height/width etc more clearly in the first photo, and branch/leaf structure more clearly in the second.

The pyracantha does look very similar though! Do they all have thorns? Oh and my photos loaded back to front!!

a kind of amelanchier?

or crabapple?

Why cut it down ?
Move it ?

Looks like a type of cotoneaster to me, maybe a lacteus.

If you've got awhile until it needs cutting down, maybe you could try propagating the one you've got?

Many shrubs can be propagated from cuttings or layering.
If it is a cotoneaster lacteus, according to this it can be grown from seed

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3316728/How-to-grow-Cotoneaster-lacteus.html

I think if I had a shrub I loved and time, I'd try all the methods.

Leaves are too leathery for amelanchier, which has quite delicate leaves.

Pyracantha leaves are quite small (up to about an inch long) and very finely toothed. They do all have thorns - the latin name means "fire thorn".

Wrong flowers for crab apple (which have apple like flowers in smaller bunches). And have finished flowering by now.

You're quite right that it's not Choisya - that has its leaves held in threes.

The leaves look most like Photinia to me but you'd know if it was that because it's young growth would have been bright red in the spring.

A viburnum is a possibility from leaf shape, but Viburnums have their leaves in pairs opposite each other, and I don't think yours
does. Cotoneaster lacteus is a good suggestion, but the leaves on yours don't have definite enough veins and are a bit too shiny.

Your best bet might be to take a cutting of it to the best garden centre in your area, and wander around and see if you can match it to anything on sale.

That’s a mystery.

Don’t think it’s any of the above.

Would like to know what it is though.

I was also going to suggest a non-red (🤔) photinia. Or some sort of laurel?

Is it ilex decidua? In winter it has berries but bare branches.

Ilex has only 4 petals, so not that.

Obama this?

Osmanthus, even?

MereDintofPandiculation and autumneve I think you might have gotten it right with the Photinia. Not a tree I had ever heard of so thank you! I will wait and see if any new growth goes red, it looks white at the moment but we did have a severe frost a few weeks ago so maybe all the new growth died?? Will try and get a few cuttings going and see if I can re-propagate it before it needs to be chopped most of the way down! Thanks all for helping.

It's the new spring growth that is red. And it really is red. I think you would have noticed it this spring.

Looks a bit like Drimys winteri although the flowers look slightly small. There are other types of Drimys. Always wanted one. Can we all have a cutting?! If you have a plant nursery locally they might be able to propagate it for you.