Kitchen Garden Forum

We have inherited a veg plot with raised beds. One bed contains this plant. It looks like it has been grown here intentionally but we don't know what it is. Can anyone help?

I'm afraid I'm struggling with this one. I assume it is quite big, could be the suckering remains of some sort of fruit, is it on an old framework? Any chance of a close up of a shoot?

If it has small purple flowers it is a Goji berry.

Looks like a buddleia alternifolia to me. If it is, it will produce lots of tiny pink flowers along its stems any time soon.

Certainly looks like Lycium barbarum but there is a non-berrying form which long before the Gobi berry form was used.
It has a nickname The Duke of Argyll's Tea Plant and was used for hedging. I inherited this when I come here over 30 years ago and I can tell you it is a pernicious weed and can grow uncontrollably. It suckers everywhere as the photo suggests. Glyphosate took three years to get rid of it! Touch wood!

That's interesting Johnboy, I took a cutting from a hedgerow years ago to identify and that was Duke of Argyle's tea tree. It's still growing in a pot so hasn't had chance to be invasive. It was only recently when Goji berries became fashionable that I found it was that family. It has pretty purple flowers on arching stems and sometimes little fruits.

The photo does also look like buddlleia alternifolia so you'll know when it flowers. It does look a bit more chunky than the Goji berry but I was thinking on the lines of fruit with it being on a veg plot.

Hi PP,
Years ago there was a disreputable nursery that was selling Duke of Argyll Tea Plants as Goji Berries. I wonder if this could be a case of this mis-selling. DATP's have incredible rates of growth. My predessor here had planted them as a hedge and when I took over the plot had been run down and the hedge was a twenty foot thicket. If you dug it out and the minutest root left it would sprout. As I said it took three years to get rid of using Glyphosate. To me it is a plant to seriously avoid! The odd thing is that I was using pigs to clear the site and the pigs wouldn't entertain it!

Sounds very dodgy Johnboy, especially if the pigs wouldn't touch it.

Hi PP,
It must be remembered that it belongs to the Solanaceae family and some are poisonous and some are not. I might be being a bit alarmist but unless you are absolutely sure I would not eat then. Remember deadly nightshade has pretty little purple flowers!