Honeysuckle honeysuckle: planting and care, description of varieties

Author: Elena N. https://floristics.info/ru/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=19 Category: Garden plants Published: February 18, 2019Last edits: January 20, 2021

Honeysuckle honeysuckle (lat. Lonicera caprifolium), or goat honeysuckle, or fragrant honeysuckle , is a type species of the genus Honeysuckle of the Honeysuckle family, which is found in the wild in the Caucasus and southern Europe in well-lit places with moist soil, in forests and along the edges. In culture, this type of honeysuckle is grown as an ornamental plant. "Caprifol" is translated from Latin as "goat leaf."

Planting and caring for honeysuckle honeysuckle

• Flowering: for three weeks in June, starting at four years of age.
• Planting: in April-May or during leaf fall.
• Lighting: bright light or partial shade.
• Soil: moist, fertile, well fertilized.
• Watering: infrequent, but plentiful: the soil under the bush should not dry out. Water consumption per plant is 1-2 buckets.
• Feeding: in the spring - with organic matter containing nitrogen and complex mineral fertilizers for flowering plants; in the summer, the plant is sprayed on the leaves with solutions of microelements.
• Pruning: sanitary, rejuvenating and formative - in the spring, before the start of sap flow.
• Reproduction: seeds, cuttings and layering.
• Pests: aphids and cabbage caterpillars.
• Diseases: rust and powdery mildew.

Read more about growing honeysuckle honeysuckle below.

Honeysuckle: autumn feeding and mulching

You know that nitrogen fertilizers are not applied in the winter, but phosphorus and potassium fertilizers are applied. Thus, autumn feeding of honeysuckle can be carried out with ordinary ash (a couple of glasses per bush), potassium salt and superphosphate (20 g and 30 g, respectively), monopotassium phosphate, etc. These fertilizers are embedded in the root zone of the bush.

Once every few years, it will not be superfluous to feed the honeysuckle with organic matter before winter - compost, rotted manure. After fertilizing with minerals, the soil can simply be mulched with organic matter. But first remove the mulch, which protected the soil in the root zone of your honeysuckle in the summer from heat and drying out, as well as fallen leaves. Although honeysuckle is not susceptible to most traditional garden diseases and pests, old mulch and foliage can become an overwintering home for insects and diseases of other site inhabitants.

Botanical description

Decorative honeysuckle honeysuckle is a climbing deciduous shrub up to 6 m high, the young shoots of which are light green, sometimes with a purple tint, becoming brown with age. Honeysuckle leaves are broadly elliptical, opposite, 4 to 10 cm long, dark green on the upper side, bluish below. Several pairs of upper leaves can grow together at their bases and form an elliptical blade. Yellowish-white fragrant flowers, often with a reddish tint on the outside, are collected in whorls in the axils of the upper leaves. The orange or red inedible honeysuckle fruits, 6-8 cm in diameter, ripen in late July or early August. They are located on such short stalks that it seems as if they were glued to the leaves.

Growing honeysuckle for berries - planting and care

How to care for honeysuckle in the fall and properly prepare for winter: fertilization, pruning and shelter

So, the honeysuckle berries have ripened and the harvest has been harvested. What should we do next so that next year honeysuckle will please us with a harvest again?

Next, we will examine the main issues regarding the proper care of honeysuckle after fruiting, including in the fall in preparation for winter.

Important! In this article we will mainly talk about caring for edible honeysuckle (blue), and also a little about decorative climbing honeysuckle (honeysuckle or Tatarian honeysuckle, which has red inedible berries ).

Planting honeysuckle honeysuckle in open ground

When to plant

Planting honeysuckle honeysuckle and caring for it is no more difficult than growing any other ornamental shrub. The best time to plant honeysuckle honeysuckle in the garden is April or May, although some gardeners advise planting the plant during leaf fall. When choosing a place for the plant, remember that abundant flowering can only occur in bright sunlight, although honeysuckle can tolerate partial shading. Honeysuckle honeysuckle liana loves moist, fertile soil, into which before planting it is necessary to add mineral and organic fertilizers for digging: potassium, nitrogen and rotted cow manure. Moreover, you need to dig up the soil with fertilizers at least two weeks before planting.

How to plant

Depending on your intention for planting the plant, dig a hole or trench. The size of the pit should be approximately 50x50x50 cm, and the trench should be 50 cm deep and 50 cm wide. If planting is carried out in an area where water stagnation may occur, lay a layer of drainage made of broken bricks, ceramic tiles or crushed stone at the bottom of the hole, then fill the hole almost to the top with fertile soil. Then a seedling is placed in the hole, its roots are straightened and the remaining space is filled with soil. Planting is carried out taking into account soil subsidence, so the root collar is left 5 cm above ground level. After abundant watering, the earth will settle and the neck will be flush with the surface. Once the water has been absorbed, mulch the tree trunk with organic material.

• Ifeyon: cultivation and care, types and varieties

In a trench, honeysuckle seedlings are placed at a distance of at least 1 m from each other, and in group plantings they are placed no closer than 1.5 m. And do not forget to immediately dig in supports for the plant if you are not going to use the walls of the building or a fence for this purpose . The support for honeysuckle honeysuckle can look like a metal or wooden structure, slats with stretched cords or nets.

Care depending on the age of the plant

There are no fundamental differences in caring for young and adult honeysuckle bushes. The main difference is the pruning. In young plants, shoots are removed in the center, ensuring air flow to the branches.

For adult bushes, this pruning tactic is poorly applicable: only curved shoots, strongly inclined outer branches and inward-directed branches are removed.

Depending on the growing region

in the central zone , so only decorative varieties that are not frost-resistant are covered.

In the Urals, varieties with low frost resistance or cold winters with little snow are insulated. Additionally, snow is added under the bushes to reduce the risk of plant death.

In Siberia, winters often have high rainfall, which poses a risk of snow breaking branches. Experienced gardeners tie the bushes into one bunch and cover it with a fine net so that the buds are not pecked by birds.

Depending on the variety

Caring for edible honeysuckle almost does not depend on the variety. At the same time, decorative forms of the crop with red inedible berries - honeysuckle - are sometimes grown in gardens. Such plants are less resistant to cold weather; they are covered in all regions.

Honeysuckle is pruned differently from edible honeysuckle: in the fall, only 5-6 main branches are left, removing all the rest. Side shoots are cut by 1/3 to stimulate their growth and active branching. Sanitary pruning involves removing broken, dried shoots and branches with signs of disease.

Honeysuckle honeysuckle care

Watering, fertilizing, loosening and weeding

During the hot season, you need to ensure that the soil under the honeysuckle bush never dries out. Honeysuckle is watered infrequently, but abundantly: one plant will need 1-2 buckets of water. After watering or rain, the soil around the honeysuckle is loosened and weeded. To prevent rapid evaporation of moisture and reduce the need for loosening and weeding, the soil around the bush is mulched.

In order to stimulate abundant flowering of honeysuckle honeysuckle, organic matter or complex mineral fertilizers for flowering plants are added to the soil in early spring. During the summer, honeysuckle can be treated with fertilizers or solutions of microelements on the leaves.

Diseases and pests

Despite the fact that honeysuckle honeysuckle is almost not affected by diseases and pests, it still has enemies: aphids and cabbage caterpillars can cause trouble for insects, and rust and powdery mildew can cause trouble for fungal infections. Since honeysuckle honeysuckle berries are not suitable for food, feel free to use chemical means of protection in the fight against pests and diseases. For example, acaricidal preparations Actellik, Aktara, Biotlin, Akarin or Antitlin will help you get rid of aphids, and insecticides are used to get rid of caterpillars. As for fungal diseases, they happen not only due to poor care, but also for reasons beyond your control. The gardener’s task is to take measures to eliminate the infection as quickly as possible, and fungicidal preparations, which can be easily purchased at any garden pavilion or flower shop, will help you with this.

Preparing for winter

A species-specific adult plant does not need shelter for the winter. But it is better to insulate varietal and hybrid honeysuckles, as well as newly planted cuttings and seedlings: cover the trunk circle with a thick layer of dry foliage, remove the plant from the support and lay it on a bed of leaves, as you do, for example, with clematis, and cover it on top Honeysuckle with spunbond, lutrasil or spruce branches.

Autumn events

They begin to prepare honeysuckle for winter in September or the last ten days of August. Specific measures depend on the age of the bush, the number of branches, and soil composition.

Trimming

Anti-aging pruning is carried out on adult shrubs at the age of 6–8 years, sanitary pruning is carried out annually. Remove broken and dry branches without affecting the young shoots, since the berries are formed on the shoots of the current year.

To rejuvenate the bush, thick old branches are cut out, leaving a small stump above the ground. On each bush, 4–6 old shoots are left, which are cut off in the next 2–3 years.

Important! Old branches are removed first in the center of the bush, leaving empty space for air access.

Feeding

In order for honeysuckle to bear fruit well next year, minerals and organic matter are added to the soil at the end of summer and autumn:

• potassium salt, potassium sulfate or monophosphate;
• superphosphate;
• nitroammofoska - no later than the first ten days of September;
• wood ash solution;
• compost.

Fertilizers are added either in combined mixtures or alternated between them.

Bone or fish meal mixed with wood ash (2:1) is used as an organic source of phosphorus and potassium for shrubs.

The soil next to and under the honeysuckle is sown with green manure. These plants, thanks to their developed root system, bring deep-lying nutrients to the surface, and when rotting, they release a large amount of organic matter. Some green manures contain phytoncides that repel pests.

Suitable for planting under shrubs:

In August, the plants are cut off at the root and embedded in the soil for active decomposition.

Watering

In the absence of rain and in the heat, the bushes are watered at least once a week. A bush uses 1.5 buckets of water, in drought - 2.5 buckets. The same regime is followed during dry autumn.

Regular moistening prevents honeysuckle from going into winter dormancy ahead of time.

Treatment

The soil is treated depending on the type of soil management. When mulching, they do not resort to loosening, only replacing the layer of mulch from time to time.

If the soil is open, dig it up - but do this with caution, since the roots of the plant lie superficially. If green manure is present, they are cut off with a hoe and embedded in the ground without removing the roots.

Protection from diseases and pests

To protect shrubs from the spring outbreak of diseases and pests, the soil around them is treated with fungicides.

For prevention, all fallen leaves and trimmings are removed from under the bushes and from nearby areas, since they serve as a wintering place for bacteria and fungi.

Important! The places where branches are cut must be treated with garden varnish or oil paint: a cut is an open wound for the plant, into which small pests and pathogens can easily enter.

Pruning honeysuckle honeysuckle

Curly honeysuckle honeysuckle needs both formative and sanitary pruning. Immediately after planting, the shoots of the plant are cut to one third of the length, and in the second year, 3-4 of the strongest shoots are selected from the grown shoots - these shoots will become the skeleton of the bush. The remaining shoots are cut out at the root. During the season, shoots that grow to the height of the support are pruned or directed along the support in the desired direction. Subsequently, diseased, broken, frozen or thickening branches of the bush are regularly cut out, otherwise the plant will look untidy. However, fanaticism in pruning is inappropriate: if you cut off the honeysuckle, it will lose its attractiveness.

• Petunia without watering and picking (wick watering)

Do not rush to prune honeysuckle in the spring: it may seem to you that some shoots look lifeless, but the peculiarity of this plant is that with the onset of warm days, its dormant buds awaken, and it suddenly turns green and begins to grow, and those shoots that do not will remain black and bare, it is never too late to remove.

If you notice that on an adult honeysuckle bush there are fewer and fewer flowers every year, perform anti-aging pruning of the plant: cut off all shoots at a height of 10-15 cm from the ground so that young shoots grow from the buds located at the base of the bush, from which you will subsequently form a new crown. Rejuvenation is carried out every 5-6 years, but it is better to do it in two steps: in one year only half of the shoots are cut off, and the rejuvenation procedure is completed the next year.

Preparing for winter

The culture has several names, like all plants that came to us from afar. Honeysuckle, honeysuckle, lonicera, goat leaf, Tatarian honeysuckle. However, all shoots can be divided into two types - edible, with blue berries, and inedible, with red berries.

The first and second ones tolerate cold temperatures down to -45 °C well, so they do not require special care in winter, except for a few procedures in the fall, like many berry fruits.

Those who know how to care for honeysuckle begin to prepare the bush for hibernation at the end of summer, because it pleased the owner with its fruits in the spring. Agrotechnical operations consist of the following:

• autumn haircut;
• weed removal;
• applying fertilizers;
• constructing a shelter or mulching;
• transplantation or propagation as necessary.

However, the leaves that have fallen from the stems continue to cause controversy among gardeners. Some insist that the leaves will serve as additional protection. The second claim that garden pests will overwinter in it.

Pruning erect honeysuckle

Honeysuckle, winter care, involves mandatory autumn pruning. The procedure can be carried out in the spring, but earlier flowering of the bush does not contribute to this. But such a session is practiced only on plants that have reached their fifth anniversary.

The haircut operation consists of observing the following rules:

1. Old, dry conductors are removed.
2. At the end of the agricultural technique, at least five branches should remain.
3. Young shoots must be left due to the fact that they are carriers of buds.
4. The top of the skeletal branch is cut off first. Moreover, the cut is made in the middle, but not near its base.
5. The remaining branches are thinned out, while small ones that thicken the crown, weakened and developing inward, are cut off.
6. A bush that has reached its twentieth anniversary is pruned at a height of approximately half a meter per stump.

In the next 2-3 years, when young shoots grow, the remaining old ones are removed.

Autumn, as well as spring, pruning is expected when the plant is in a leafless state.

Haircut for curly crops

Who knows how to care for honeysuckle, anti-aging pruning is carried out in compliance with the following conditions:

1. No more than six main skeletal conductors are left, the rest are cut out.
2. The lateral shoots are shortened by a third every autumn to stimulate active branching.
3. When the crop reaches the desired height, the tops are pinched off.
4. Regular autumn sanitary haircuts are also not forgotten.

Formative pruning is carried out according to the personal preference of its owner.

Reproduction of honeysuckle honeysuckle

Honeysuckle is propagated by seeds, cuttings or layering.

Propagation by seeds

Generative propagation of honeysuckle is a labor-intensive process, so gardeners usually resort to more reliable and faster vegetative methods. However, in certain cases, seed propagation is preferable to vegetative propagation. How to propagate honeysuckle honeysuckle from seeds? Stratified for two months at temperatures from 0 to 5 ºC, the seeds are sown in March in a moist mixture of equal parts of sand, peat and humus, sprinkled with a thin layer of sand on top and covered with plastic film or glass. Keep the crops in a bright, warm place, removing the film daily for ventilation and, if necessary, to moisten the substrate. The grown seedlings are promptly planted in separate pots. They are planted in open ground only next spring, and they will bloom in the third or fourth year. Until then, the seedlings need to be covered for the winter with peat, spruce branches or lutrasil.

You can sow honeysuckle honeysuckle directly into the ground, and it is better to do this in the fall, so that the seeds undergo natural stratification in the soil over the winter months. In the spring, the seedlings will sprout together. It’s easy to care for them: water them, loosen the soil around them, remove weeds, feed them, and most importantly, plant them in time so that they don’t interfere with each other’s development.

Reproduction by layering

This is the easiest and most reliable way to propagate honeysuckle. In the spring, a flexible vine branch is placed in a shallow trench, leaving the top above the surface, the shoot is secured in the recess and covered with fertile soil. All summer the cuttings are watered and fed, and in the fall they are separated from the bush and transplanted to a permanent place.

Cuttings

Propagation of honeysuckle honeysuckle by cuttings also gives good results. Cuttings with at least two internodes are cut from the middle part of the shoots after flowering. When planting, one internode is completely buried in the substrate, having previously removed the leaf from it, and on the upper part of the cutting the leaves are only shortened. Rooting occurs in a bright place, protected from direct sunlight, and in a humid environment. It is best to root cuttings in a greenhouse or greenhouse under a film. The substrate should be light and fertile, such as a mixture of sand and peat in equal parts.

• Ginkgo biloba from seeds - simple instructions for successful cultivation

The cuttings are watered, weeded, ventilated, the soil around them is loosened, and as soon as new leaves begin to form on them, the cutting process can be considered successfully completed. The cuttings are planted in a permanent place after a year, and after another year the seedlings will bloom.

Transplanting and planting honeysuckle in autumn

Planting or replanting of honeysuckle is carried out around September, before the leaves fall, so that by the cold weather the plant has time to take root and overwinter well. During this period, honeysuckle shoots no longer grow, and you will not cause harm to the plant. If you have experience in planting any berry bushes, then there will be no problems here either.

To plant honeysuckle in the fall, dig a hole approximately 40x40 cm in size, pour a bucket of humus, superphosphate and potassium salt (200 g and 40 g, respectively) onto the bottom and mix with part of the soil removed when digging the hole. On the resulting embankment, the plant is placed so that its root collar is at soil level, and covered with the remaining soil. The soil in the tree trunk circle is compacted, the bush is watered and mulched.

Transplanting honeysuckle in the fall is carried out in exactly the same way as planting. For adult bushes, the hole should be larger, and it is better to cut off their shoots, leaving half-meter stems.

Varieties

Honeysuckle honeysuckle has two decorative forms:

• alba - a plant that blooms with white flowers two weeks earlier than the main species;
• pauciflora is a very attractive plant, blooming with pink-red flowers, but not as profusely as the typical form of Honeysuckle and Honeysuckle Alba.

There is also honeysuckle Inga honeysuckle with white, pink, red or yellow fragrant flowers, collected in spicate or capitate inflorescences.

As for such crops often mentioned in the specialized literature as Brown's honeysuckle and climbing honeysuckle, the first plant has nothing to do with honeysuckle: it is a hybrid between rough honeysuckle and evergreen honeysuckle. Hybrid plants also include American honeysuckle and Heckrotta. And climbing honeysuckle, or German honeysuckle, is an independent species of the genus, like honeysuckle honeysuckle and honeysuckle gray-ashy, yellow, glaucous, scion, blanket, Ledebura, common, Tatar and others.

When and how to prune honeysuckle correctly - step-by-step pruning instructions

In order for honeysuckle to bloom and bear fruit beautifully, to delight you with its tasty and large fruits with many vitamins and microelements, and to become a real “pharmacy” for several generations of your family, it must be pruned on time and correctly. Beginner gardeners can use our recommendations on this page of the site.

The honeysuckle bush has many branches and even more shoots, on which buds awaken in the spring, shoots grow again and thicken the crown. At the same time, nutrition and lighting of skeletal branches deteriorate, and productivity decreases. Pruning of the crop is carried out mainly in the fall after leaf fall or even in winter. But often gardeners perform spring pruning of honeysuckle: when and how to do it correctly, experienced gardeners and specialists on our website give recommendations.

How to prune honeysuckle in spring and autumn

For 3 years after planting, honeysuckle bushes are almost never pruned due to their slow growth. When active development of shoots begins and the bushes become dense, moderate formation of honeysuckle is carried out by pruning. It should be taken into account that spring work can cause damage to fruit buds, and autumn work can cause damage to branches, due to their fragility. Any awkward bending of a branch or shoot ends in a break or a complete fracture.

Should honeysuckle be pruned in the fall? It is known that honeysuckle begins to bear fruit on last year’s shoots, so they cannot be cut. Old branches are no longer able to produce young shoots, so they are systematically removed in the fall. As for shortening the tips of the shoots, this also cannot be done, since they contain fruit buds. According to the advice of gardeners, the thinning procedure is carried out once every 2 years.

Purpose of pruning

Honeysuckle branches form a crown ball on the bush, get tangled and break, block feeding paths, block the sun's rays and block ventilation to the main standard branches and root system. As the crowns thicken, the upper shoots gradually dry out and die off, yields decrease, and the berries lose their taste: plump fruits turn into raisins.

The purpose of pruning is to:

stimulating the active development of shrubs and the growth of new shoots;

• increasing fruit yield;
• removal of dry, broken and cracked branches affected by disease and pests.

Timing of pruning

Young seedlings must gain crown volume, so in the first year 2-5 of the strongest shoots are left, and the rest are cut off. For active tillering, the tops are pinched, but this is done only once, since flower buds, the future fruits, are concentrated on them.

Since you can prune honeysuckle in the fall for a good harvest at 6-7 years of age, you need to do the following work:

• only after the end of leaf fall: remove damaged and dry branches, small shoots and twigs;
• Only mature plants should be cut out a small number of shoots;
• leave strong main branches - at least 5;
• with warm and humid autumn during the day and negative temperatures at night, it is better to carry out work in October;
• decorative pruning to create a beautiful and curly crown.

Features of the work carried out

On a normal healthy honeysuckle bush you need to leave 15 mature branches. The rest should be pruned according to the age of the plant. Namely, they carry out:

• sanitary work: thinning of bushes - after 6 and up to 10 years of growth;
• on an old bush, for the purpose of rejuvenation, the branches are greatly shortened down to the ground once every 3-4 years;

Trimming methods

How to prune honeysuckle using basic pruning methods:

All deformed branches, shoots and crown are eliminated as much as possible, leaving the entire trunk wood for the crown. Carry out once every 2-3 years. At least 5 main trunks are left.

1. Detailed

You should carefully inspect each branch and remove dry or damaged ones once every 3-4 years. At the same time, productivity increases.

1. Anti-aging

The stems are cut in the fall to the restoration zone after 8-10 years of the bush’s life.

If we characterize in detail the main methods of work, they are carried out to achieve the following goals:

• When cutting, branches or shoots are completely removed into a “ring”. This is how young shrubs are formed or sanitary work is carried out.
• In the process of shortening the weak or strong ends of branches or shoots, their length is reduced. Strong shortening delays fruiting (if honeysuckle does not bear fruit, read our article), but activates the growth of new shoots for the crown.
• When thinning the crown, the access of air and light to its center and main branches is increased.

Trimming

Young honeysuckle bushes do not need pruning. Since flower buds are formed on the shoots of the current year, by pruning young branches, you may not get a harvest next year. The exception is broken branches. When the bush is 6–8 years old, anti-aging pruning is performed. The branches are cut out completely, leaving a stump above the ground of about 15 cm. On each bush, after such rejuvenating pruning, 3–5 old branches should remain . Over the next 2–3 years, young shoots grow, and the remaining old ones are cut out.

Pruning honeysuckle: before pruning - a lush old bush, after pruning - several powerful branches

Video: autumn pruning of honeysuckle