Take a walk around a local woodland or your garden after a shower and you may well be engulfed by a fragrant waft filling the air. This prolific climber is a scent sensation to our local fauna and is a valuable nectar and berry pit-stop for all our garden birds, butterflies and moths. Not only does this handsome hedgerow hiker produce a nectar laden flower but clusters of bright red berries accompany it throughout the flowering season too.
As we know, it is important to encourage our native, diurnal insects and birds into our wildlife gardens but species that lurk in the night need our care too and honeysuckle does a double-whammy in this department. During daylight hours it feeds a whole selection of species but more importantly at night this woody wonder produces an aroma so sweet that the local moth population cant help themselves; and if there is a raft of moths in the garden, look out for bats quartering above, as they will be feasting on, dare I say it, the months! Plant honeysuckle near to your window or patio where, on a lovely summer evening you and the moths (and the bats!) can enjoy a wonderful scented aroma, and if you are very lucky and live near a woodland with Dormice, you might be able to encourage this shy species to come and steal a little bark for its nest or fatten up on its flowers during the summer months.
Latin name: Lonicera periclymenum
Identification
- Plant Height: Up to 5 meters.
- Leaves: 1-10cms in length. The leaves are a simple grey-green, oval shape, borne in opposite pairs. Some are deciduous but some are evergreen so don’t worry if your honeysuckle looses all it’s leaves!
- Flowers: The flower heads consist of a cluster of long, bell-shaped flowers, creamy yellow and flushed with red. These lovely flowers produce gallons of nectar for our native insects and smell delightful to us!
- Habitat found: Honeysuckle is very common and can be found winding it’s way through any hedgerow, scrub or around an unsuspecting tree.
- Flowering time: June to September
- Attracts: Birds, Dormice and Moths
In The Garden
Honeysuckle can tolerate even the poorest of soils and can grow in most gardens but, as it is a climber, give it a helping hand and plant it beside a structure it can ramble up, like a pergola or let it entwine with your hedgerow. It is also a fast growing plant so can fill gaps in the vegetation quickly and can grow equally well in full sunshine or shady parts of the garden.
Did you know?
- Honeysuckle can provide nest sites for many small birds and strips of its bark are sometimes taken by bluetits, blackbirds and even pied flycatchers for use in nest-building; Wrens love to nest and roost in it too. This is an absolute must for any wildlife gardener who wants not only a lovely scented plant, day and night, but also a beautiful climber that attracts a whole variety of wildlife into the garden.