Decaisnea fargesii (Blue Sausage Shrub, Dead Man's Fingers)

Deciduous large shrub or small tree. Originally from eastern Asia to western China, it grows quite slowly to around 4 metres x 4 metres. It does completely bonkers fruit: bright blue velvety giant beans, which are its most outlandish feature.

The seeds in these cartoonish pods are not edible, but the sweet gelatinous pulp which surrounds them  has the flavour of watermelon, it is said.

Graceful in form, its leaves are a fresh salad-y green and delicately serrated. They are held in divided pairs each about 30-40cm long so these too are rather outlandish.  Each pair of outsize leaves are held horizontally which gives a dense and layered effect to the canopy, and the impression of multiple platforms and topographies. Fantastic light and shade contrast through the plant as a whole and over time it will become multi-stemmed and form quite thick thicketty thickets, with all that mass of foliage puffing out from the sides and top. Small racemes (botany lingo for ‘flower cluster’) of blooms are produced in early summer and these are rather nondescript, drooping pendulously. These are pleasantly fragrant however, and most pongy in the evening.

These then give way to the remarkable fruit. Bonkers, perfectly potty things. Magic beans. Surely, they inspired the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland? We’re in love.

Find this shrub a cosy spot in full sun to partial shade, in any sheltered position on a moist but well drained soil. it is hardy in most winters, down to -10C but we’ll remind you again about the sheltered aspect part