We recently bought a house with a garden which had a couple of true blackcurrant bushes and an ornamental ribes. i severely pruned the fruiting blackcurrants and this year I got enough fruit to make a respectable pie, but I had to abandon picking at one point as the plant was covered in angry black ants. Today I took the loppers to the ornamental currant bush and decided it is coming out. It is in the wrong place and has been allowed to get too leggy anyway, so unfortunately it is not pulling its weight and has to go. We had ornamental ribes mixed in with the privet hedge when I was a kid, and although they have quite nice pink flowers the main impression was the awful smell of cats' pee.
