Honeysuckle is a stunning, often underrated native climbing shrub, and one of our favourite plants at Wildacres.
It is also known as ‘Woodbine’ because of its ability to wrap itself around its support such as another tree shrub or a fence, with its old growth taking on a tough woody character.
It will happily scramble through and over, any suitable supporting structure, making it an ideal addition to a garden to grow through a hedge or over/up against a fence or wall.
It has a history of being used in beauty products, whereby its flowers have been distilled to make fragrant essential oils. These oils are then used in perfumes, soaps, and other beauty products for their sweet, captivating fragrance.
Honeysuckle scrambling through a hedge at Wildacres
This plant is a true gem in relation to its many benefits for wildlife and its beautiful visual displays of flowers and berries.
At Wildacres, we would consider it a must for any garden. From its breathtaking, almost tropical like flowers, to its beautiful translucent bright red jewel like berries, it is a sight to behold! Then as if that were not enough, there is the additional incredible night-time scent.
Honeysuckle flowerhead in bud with ripe berries at Wildacres
When it comes to the wildlife it attracts and supports, Honeysuckle also comes top of the class! As it switches on its gorgeous sweet, perfumed scent at dusk, for the hours of darkness, it is much loved by some moth species.
A slighter paler beautiful Honeysuckle flowerhead at Wildacres
One of its night-time visitor’s is our stunning native Elephant Hawk Moth. In attracting night-time pollinators, they can then become a source of food for some of our fascinating bats.
For example, our gorgeous long eared bat has such acute hearing it can differentiate between a leaf rustling in the wind and a tasty morsel of a caterpillar or spider crawling over the leaf of a honeysuckle, or other plant. It can then hover above, pinpointing its prey before carefully plucking it from the leaf.
Now isn’t that just incredible!
Elephant Hawk Moth at Wildacres
Additionally, during daylight hours Honeysuckle is much loved by our long-tongued bumblebees. (Yes…some of our Bumblebee species have different length tongues/proboscises, to avail of different flower structures, think of deep tubular foxglove flowers as opposed to shallow open hawthorn flowers).
It also attracts greenfly and blackfly to its tender new growth, providing a rich hunting ground for many creatures, from ladybirds to lacewings and even hungry aphid munching bluetits.
Bluetit at Wildacres
In Autumn Honeysuckle produces a crop of beautiful translucent red berries that are much prized for food by a vast array of birds from thrushes to blackcaps.
At Wildacres this season, with the help of our wonderful volunteer Elke, we have taken many softwood summer cuttings to grow on, into what will hopefully be 300 plus future native honeysuckle plants. These will support wildlife and bring joy to those who plant them, for decades to come.
Wildacres volunteer Elke, has planted hundreds of Honeysuckle cuttings
Honeysuckle in flower at Wildacres, looking stunning in the rain
Why not book into one of our upcoming events to see our native honeysuckle and many more wonderful species of native wildlife. Get to enjoy a wonderful day out and learn more about what you can do to bring fascinating biodiversity into your outdoor spaces.
Check out our upcoming events here
How to propagate Honeysuckle from Semi-Ripe cuttings.
This is an easy way to propagate your own Honeysuckle plants for free.
Just follow the simple steps below.
- Find a Honeysuckle plant in the wild, they are often found scrambling through roadside hedges.
- Take an extended growth section of a good length, that will yield a few cuttings for you to plant. Choose semi-ripe growth, as in this year’s growth that has partially hardened off, but not last year’s hard woody growth. This year’s growth will have a red colour to the stem as opposed to the grey woody look of last year’s growth.
- Mist the cuttings with water and temporarily store them in a plastic bag sealed, so as they do not dry out, process as cuttings and plant ASAP the same day.
- Lay out all the items you will need: your length of fresh Honeysuckle to take your cuttings from, your secateurs, your rooting hormone powder (not essential but yields better results), your pot filled with damp free draining soil, your plastic bag to cover the pot, rubber bands to secure the plastic bag over the pot. (See Picture 1).
- Now cut into pencil length sections, cutting just below a leaf node (See Picture 2) and just above for each cutting (See Picture 3). You can remove the leaves from the lower leaf node and leave the leaves (if there are any present) on the upper leaf node.
- Ideally dip the bottom end lightly in a rooting hormone powder, but this is not essential.
- Make a planting hole for your cutting with a small twig or pencil in the soil and plant the cuttings, about an 25mm deep, firm the soil around the base of the cutting lightly. We usually plant four cuttings per pot, into a well-drained light soil.(See Picture 4).
- Lightly water so soil is well wetted and place a plastic bag over the pot with some small holes cut in the top. Rubber band the base of the bag around the pot to keep it in place. (See Picture 5).
- Place in a well-lit spot, a sunny windowsill is ideal. Keep soil moist.
Within a few weeks your cuttings should root, and you will see leaf buds emerging, only when you see roots coming out the end of the pot will you need to re-pot so each cutting that successfully rooted, is now in its own pot.
Next Spring when your cutting has put on good growth you can plant it into its final spot. Somewhere it can grow on a support such as at the base of a hedge or up a trellis on a fence or wall. Give it a feed of an organic fertiliser (ideally your own compost), mulch around the base of the plant with bark chip or straw to keep moisture in the soil (keeping mulch away from the stem). Keep it well watered until established.
Congratulations…You have created a beautiful biodiversity supporting native Honeysuckle plant you can enjoy for years to come.
Brian and Gilly
Co-founders Wildacres Nature Reserve and Biodiversity Education Centre, County Wicklow
Picture 1. Items required for Honeysuckle cuttings.
Picture 2. Cutting Below leaf node, base of cutting
Picture 3. Cutting above leaf node, top of cutting.
Picture 4. Cutting inserted in pot.
Picture 5. Pot covered in plastic bag with holes.
