Hey sheets, Well, I've never used it in that application, but I would think it would be infinitly better than peat. I would also definitly mix it with something inorganic and not internally porous, like perlite or granite chips, etc. I would probably try to use a slightly larger range of material, not huge - just slightly larger - in an effort to keep the average particle size north of 1/10" For my buck though, I just use the finished mix to start seeds in, works great. You can puck out the larger pieces of bark easy enough. It also makes for a very smooth transition to your 3" pots and beyond. PJ

The flowers certainly look like those in my old catalogue, but cannot help with the growth pattern. Botanica's Roses refer to it as ' a bushy, lanky plant with lush, large dark glossy foliage that can reach 3.5m in height and prefers warm dry weather. Subject to mildew' Beale's Classic Roses adds 'dark wood' to the list & also mentions suspect hardiness. In both the flowers are described as being very double , very full, sometimes quartered. Beale's says the colour is yellowish buff,shaded peach with pinkish undertones, scented; Botanica says flesh- peach with yellow overtones when fully open, no mention of fragrance. Unfortunately, there are no photos of young or mature plants. I wonder if Adam in Western Austalia has this rose growing.

The leaf may ‘look like’ but the rest of the details don’t and I believe the OP is in NY. A rare guava indeed. Also it’s a herbaceous perennial not a shrub.

So, so sorry - I goofed. I went out to look at it more closely, and the tiny grey blue berries are actually on the dratted barberry, which snuck over into this other shrub. There are pink flower buds all over my mystery shrub, and I did (I hope) take a pic of the ONE bloom cluster I can see which is open, way up at the top. In the first pic below, you can see the pinkish buds against the sky. The second pic shows the only flowers I was able to find just now. The third and last pic is a close up of one mature leaf. It does, indeed, have sort of teeth - not smooth. I did look up pics of lonicera maackii, and the leaves did not match to me. Any further thoughts? Jackie