HAVE: Seeds from heirloom 6' tall bush w/ lovely, shiny, small green leaves. In Spring, it gets tiny pink/white flowers shaped like teacups. And in Autumn, it has purplish-blue berries. As I am unable to identify the bush, I believe them to be NON-EDIBLE. The leaves turn a lovely shade of pinky-peachy-gold in Autumn. Pictures are on this website, which is not mine: http://ramblinganne.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html Not sure if this is what you're looking for, and they're probably not edible. Am mostly interested in flowers, mostly perennial. Let me know if you're interested in a trade. Thanks.

Wow, I didn't expect so many replies, or so quickly. Thanks everyone! With the leads you guys provided I went to the growers website (the company name was on the pot) and determined that it's caryopteris - either the "longwood blue" or "blue mist" cultivar. Oh, and we're located in southern Maine. I hope that bees like it - we're beekeepers so that would be a definite plus! Thanks for the help!

I'm growing it and have had great success. It is not because of me...I found the poor thing had half of it's soil washed away and the roots were exposed to our awful ice storms and everything this winter. It has flowered and is full of unripe berries and is only about 1.5 feet tall! I was very impressed. I'll try to find the tag and see what variety it is.

I have hedges of Althea as well as double flowered trees and can tell you they take pruning -- even heavy -- in stride. My neighbor has some twisted and intertwined to form a basket with handle & everything =) So, don't be afraid to prune them. You can actually cut the branches back by as much as 80% to reshape your tree and have it put more weight on the fence side to add stability to the tree (and yes, it is classified as a 'small tree') -- I'd start by cutting out that branch going from left to the right side where it meets the main trunk and then cut the others down to about the height of the fence (it may not look pretty initially, but it will grow out again in the next season and bloom like crazy to boot). Yours definitely could use a heavy pruning to encourage branching especially (besides the stability issue). The best time to prune is after all the flowers have passed and the seed pods are starting to go from green to tan OR about a month before first frost in cold regions like yours. If the trunk of the tree has any damage or you intend to cut back more than 50% of the tree, prune after flowering, though.... These trees can take the cold, but their native habitat doesn't get quite as cold as MN (or NY, for that matter) so they are susceptible to freezing if cuts don't have time to heal over before hard frost. Hope that helps =)