Discover unique garden products curated by the Garden Design editors, plus items you can use to solve problems in your garden right now, and best sellers from around the web. Copyright It produces attractive white/yellow, sweetly fragrant blooms in late spring followed by glossy red fruit. ), and each and everyone is a first-rate delicacy to a wide range of bird species. The tidy, compact growth habit won’t overwhelm smaller gardens. In spring, the ground layer of ephemeral wildflowers wakes up first. To get a handle on this question we need to look at where it is so successful locally. Lonicera sempervirens ‘Dropmore Scarlet’A lovely hybrid especially hardy in colder climates (down to Zone 3), producing scarlet-red blooms from June until the first frost. Pests abound: Squirrels, chipmunks and deer — oh my! Honeysuckle flowers grow in clusters at the branch tips, forming pinwheels of tubular blossoms in an array of shades, from pale pastels to rich reds. They can also be grown on slopes to control erosion or draped over retaining walls. Water honeysuckles thoroughly after planting, and give them a good soaking once a week until the roots become established. Photo by: Jennifer Martin-Atkins / Millette Photomedia. Most vines, with the exception of the overly aggressive Japanese honeysuckle (L. japonica), are better behaved and easier to manage, particularly the newer compact cultivars. It is heat and drought tolerant and can grow in soils on both the acid and alkaline end of the spectrum. Our typical eastern hardwood forests consist of a variable over-story composition — beech, oak, sycamore, maple, ash, etc., depending on where you are — a mid-layer of dogwood, serviceberry, spicebush and a few others, and then a herbaceous ground layer. That throws off the honeysuckle’s time clock. Listen, 2020 is the worst: Here's where to enjoy some trees (and other nature) in Louisville. In spring, the opposite is the case. In fall, the honeysuckle can continue to grow well after the trees overhead have lost their leaves. Their dense growth provides a thicket in which many birds love to nest while foraging on the colorful berries. It was brought to the United States, along with other non-native honeysuckles such as Tatarian (Lonicera tatarica), as an ornamental plant.Like many invasive species, Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) likes to grow along the edge of a disturbance (wood edge, path).It prefers full sun, but it can grow in shaded environments. Pruning and thinning your vines to increase air circulation and light penetration are the best preventive measures. Young honeysuckle can easily be pulled from the ground. “If I were to have only one trellis, I’d probably plant a honeysuckle,” says Ferris Cook, author of The Garden Trellis: Designs to Build and Vines to Cultivate. Photo by: JurateBuiviene / Shutterstock. Mature plants are more drought tolerant and can get by on less water, but they are happier growing in evenly moist (not soggy) soil. Approximately 180 species of honeysuckle have been identified in North America and Eurasia. This is also an effective way to disguise an older fence that has become an eyesore. In essence, our honeysuckles growing along the Watterson Expressway think it’s still summer. Foliage is a blue-green and stems are purple-red. Honeysuckles don’t need big doses of fertilizer to produce a bounty of blooms. Plus, the fruit has a distinct laxative effect on the avian digestive system which is why so many of the seeds end up on your newly washed and waxed car. But Mother Nature is nothing if not efficient, and she wouldn’t dream of letting even an invasive exotic pest do its thing without making sure we could learn something from it. Photo by: Rock Giguère / Millette Photomedia. And from an evolutionary standpoint, Amur honeysuckle has the seed dispersal thing down pat.