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Lonicera hildebrandiana
This savage-looking thing is the Giant Burmese honeysuckle, the biggest of its tribe (as far as I know) and the most problematic to grow. Roy Lancaster - who gave it to us let it consume the south wall of his house. But he is near the south coast, and the thought of it scrambling all over our one really sheltered house wall (it will quickly reach 20 feet), and then succumbing to an Essex winter, leads me to keep it in a pot. I just lend it the wall for the summer months. Its scent is in keeping with the giant size of its flowers and leaves.
Hildebrand seems an appropriate name for a savage monster of a plant. In legend he was a Wagnerian figure of violent habits. He was also one of the toughest of the Medieval Popes, AKA Gregory VII, a native of the ancient Etruscan city of Sovana who thought nothing of excommunicating the Emperor.
One to admire but not, perhaps, to welcome into a middle-class home.
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