What is this? Do I want it?

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New house, garden must have been a much loved thing of beauty at some point but now a bit neglected. Does anyone know what this is? It has a look about it, for me, of never amounting to much, but there are a few gems in this garden, maybe it's amazing for a few weeks of the year.

I'm wondering if it's a Deutzia or Forsythia. I'd keep Forsythia but our Deutzia is hidden behind a shed and it took 4 years for me to realise it was there 😳

I'll look them up. My mum will probably know when she comes round but I'm desperate to crack on, which includes moving a conifer, and that might be easier if the deutzia/forsythia isn't there.

Don't keep something just because you "should". If moving it makes way for something better, just get rid.

If it's ok to have some sort of flowering shrub there, prune it back to a reasonable size and see if it flowers. If it's in the way of some exciting alternative, dig it up.

Looks like forsythia. Nice because it flowers so early

I have an app called picturethis which identifies plants. There are many apps that do this. They also show what it would look like whilst in bloom so you can decide if it’s something you want to keep. Have a look on your phones App Store, or google what is this plant apps

@Iwantcollarbones I've seen ads for those plant ID apps, I assumed they were rubbish! I'll give it a go. There are plenty of other mystery plants.

@TurquoiseBaubles you're dead right. I am going to find it very hard to get rid of stuff that isn't right for us. Apparently the garden used to win prizes, but parts of it are so over grown there are mature shrubs lost behind and under others mature shrubs. I'm apprehensive about the amount I'm going to have to cut back just to see what's what.

I'll just keep going a bit at a time. I keep reminding myself Rome wasn't built in a day.

The usual advice is let everything grow for one year until you have seen all the seasons through and then decide. But you may not have the patience for that!! It sounds like a very exciting garden and one that may throw up many surprises.

Forsythia?
Shrub with yellow flowers every spring. I always have to have one in the garden.

We’ve renovated two gardens. Don’t be afraid to cut things back hard.

@Iwantcollarbones

I have an app called picturethis which identifies plants. There are many apps that do this. They also show what it would look like whilst in bloom so you can decide if it’s something you want to keep. Have a look on your phones App Store, or google what is this plant apps

You can't use an app as the definitive answer - they are capable of getting things very wrong, for example identifying a shrub as a creeping plant. It's a starting point only

Don’t trust those apps. On the other hand you can check me out next month on the bbc coverage of Chelsea. Sure looks like a forsythia to me….

Thanks @Bideshi! I have tried the app today and, while it was pretty amazing, I can see it's not foolproof (we gave it some challenges!) but a useful starter.

I’ve just tried it on three things that you’d expect a reasonably experienced British gardener to identify. It came up with three completely wrong answers. It’s very limited. It also gives American common names which are often very different from the ones used here. So nul points but there may be better apps.

An app is simply doing what we do when identifying an unknown plant - looking through lots and lots pictures till it finds one that matches. And it can do that much more efficiently than we can.

The problem is that they don’t use all the extra information we do - this is a shrub, not a creeper, it’s growing outside in the north of England, it’s flowering in May not August. And so on.

And they don’t usually know the significance of what they see, eg that having 5 petals rather than 6 is far more significant than the colour of the petals.

Finally they don’t usually assign any probability to the answer “I’m not sure about this but it could be…”

I've seen ads for those plant ID apps, I assumed they were rubbish!

Most of them are - or at least they go on shape of leaf and/or colour & shape of flowers. They can guess correctly, or get it wildly and spectacularly wrong. You will often get an id that looks superficially alike, but then you find it is a native weed in the USA, or is a tiny alpine and not the monster growing in your garden.

A great pinch of salt is needed with what the app comes up with.

I agree with other pp by the way - from your photo it looks like a forsythia.

i use PlantNet, it’s been really helpful identifying plants in my new garden. Occasionally it gets confused, but only when i’m only showing it leaves and not flowers.

i would chop your plant back quite hard and see what it does next year.

Looks like a hydrangea of some sort? Give it time to see what it does before you decide.

Peony?

I think it's Deutzia. I love mine and have taken cuttings easily so now have several round the garden. Very pretty small pink/white flowers in the summer though doesn't flower for long. They normally have long stems, a bit fountain like. Mine are about 7 ft tall (though the ones online seem to be smaller and bushy). Yours doesn't look too healthy. Perhaps dig it up and move root ball or cut back and see what happens.

It's a forsythia!

Slightly knobbly greyish twigs that snap easily, leaves, well, leaves the shape yours are. No pruning from now until spring after flowering as it flowers on this year's wood, and then you can cut back, into shape or what you wish. The ones in my old gardens got a hard hack back every few years and then just light pruning until they got to big again.

Think I can leave it to flower and be certain. I do plan to just weed, tidy and prune for the first year, especially in the back garden, which is more interesting. This dude is in front garden and we need a cabinet reshuffle out there to make a path as we're struggling to get in and out if the car is on the drive.

Sorry, the point was to say plans have changed and the suspected forsythia can remain in situ.

@LilyRed

It's a forsythia!

Slightly knobbly greyish twigs that snap easily, leaves, well, leaves the shape yours are. No pruning from now until spring after flowering as it flowers on this year's wood, and then you can cut back, into shape or what you wish. The ones in my old gardens got a hard hack back every few years and then just light pruning until they got to big again.

Spot on.