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And fruiting honeysuckle bushes, and ornamental plants of this type for the past century enjoy the attention of domestic gardeners. A variety of types and forms of honeysuckle allows you to use the culture when you make arches, as a hedge, in group and single plantings. Almost all honeysuckle shrubs are beautiful honey plants. Varieties with healthy edible berries are regularly pleased with a bountiful harvest. How difficult is it to plant this shrub on your plot? And how to care for honeysuckle, so that the plant maximally showed all its qualities?
Choosing a place to plant honeysuckle
Honeysuckle, whether it is a fruit bush or a lush blooming liana, is notable for its simple agricultural equipment, does not require special painstaking care or conditions.
When choosing a site for planting, it is necessary to take into account that the best growth and abundant flowering is possible only on a well-lit area with a slight shade. If the plant falls into a thick shadow, the shoots are extended, and the number of cutting buds decreases. There is no need to wait for amicable growth and abundant fruiting, when honeysuckle is planted on excessively dry or, on the contrary, moist, low-lying areas.
Honeysuckle requirements for soil composition are very modest. Shrub prefers loose moderately wet soil with an acidity of up to 8.5 units. When planting honeysuckle necessarily provide good drainage, and as a fertile soil is quite suitable mixture of three parts of sod land, peat and sand, taken one by one.
Planting honeysuckle on a plot of
Seedlings with a root system protected by a clod of earth and a container can be planted in the garden from April to October, without fear that the plant will hardly acclimatize and hurt.
The seedling carefully transferred to the planting pit is quickly accepted and does not require any special care measures, except feeding and watering. If the honeysuckle is to be planted with an open root system, then the most favorable time for this is considered to be the period from the second half of August to October. This is due to:
- end of the growing season;
- good shrub winter hardiness;
- completion of the formation of shoots and apical buds for growth in the upcoming season.
Since honeysuckle is a plant cross-pollinated, the gardener should provide for the presence of insect pollen somewhere nearby, otherwise there is no need to wait for the harvest from a single bush.
As a planting material, plants of two or three years of age are most often used, for which pits of not less than 30 centimeters depth and width are prepared.
You can replant more mature plants. The only condition that such as in the photo honeysuckle, planting and care for which is carried out already in the sixth year of life, was pre-cut to 50 cm in height. Due to the absence of a large crown and the mass of foliage, this will simplify the addiction of the bush to new conditions. For pre-pruned bushes of 5–7 years old, the planting holes widen and deepen up to 50 cm.
- It is important to leave a distance of not less than one and a half to two meters between seedlings, which are to grow well.
- The root system is spread and sprinkled with soil so that the root neck of the bush is at the level of the soil.
- The necessary fertilizers are applied to the pit, for example, 40 grams of potassium-containing agents, 60–100 grams of superphosphate and about five kilograms of mullein.
If the soil is initially fertilized, the plant will not need additional dressing for two years after planting. And how to take care of honeysuckle seedlings immediately fall into the ground?
- Landing place carefully watered.
- The soil under a planted bush is mulched to prevent rapid evaporation of moisture.
Spring planting of honeysuckle is possible only if the plant enters the growing season late. Most often these are ornamental species, for example, alpine or small-leaved honeysuckle. Fruiting varieties in the spring is better not to disturb. Honeysuckle care, planting occurred at the time of the revival of the kidneys and the beginning of growth, threatens serious complications.
How to care for honeysuckle?
Honeysuckle vegetation period begins in early spring. Plants come to life quickly after winter and for abundant flowering they should receive high-quality top dressing in the form of universal fertilizer at the rate of 20–30 grams per meter of planting area. When the plant gives buds, its strength is well supported by irrigation with Kemira Universal on 20 grams per bucket of water.
Honeysuckle favorably responds to sprinkling. This procedure, if there is a lag in shrub growth, can be used to add foliar bait, which includes superphosphate, nitrogen and potash fertilizers. When the summer ends, it is important that the plants go to wintering strong and healthy. How to feed honeysuckle in the fall?
- After a massive leaf fall, the soil under the honeysuckle bushes is loosened by 20 cm and 100-200 grams of sifted wood ash are applied per meter of plantation.
- In addition, shrubs should be fed with infusion of manure or humus with the addition of phosphate and potash fertilizers.
- Before the onset of cold weather, pristvolnye circles under the plants are covered with peat or sawdust, with a layer up to 5 cm.
To obtain berries with decent taste, it is not enough to plant a high-yielding variety on the site. It is necessary to provide the plant with sufficient watering and monitor the condition of the soil under the plantings.
How to care for honeysuckle in the hot season? Honeysuckle does not have a great need for water, but in hot, dry weather, especially when ripening berries, additional watering of 10 liters per bush is needed. Otherwise, the soil dries and thickens.
Plants who receive less moisture are forced to either lose some of the fruit, or the berries ripen dry with a clear bitter aftertaste.
Pruning honeysuckle and forming bushes
Honeysuckle care in the fall is not limited to fertilization and soil loosening. After the leaf fall, it is time to trim the shrub. Depending on the type of plant and its purpose, the formation of the crown is different. Ornamental creepers and plants planted to create hedges need only sanitary removal of weak, diseased and damaged branches, as well as giving shape to the bush. In fruit-bearing honeysuckle, not only the appearance, but also the number of ripened berries depends on the quality of pruning. Therefore, trimming such plants has its own characteristics.
The best time for trimming honeysuckle is autumn, when the foliage is opal, and the structure of the bush is well traced. Honeysuckle juice movement starts very early, if you do not have time to remove extra or old branches in March, you will have to wait until October. But the dry shoots can be removed at any time. The honeysuckle of the first two or three years of life does not need special pruning. The development of shoots at this time is due to the upper buds, and the bush increases the green mass. Then the lengthening of the branches gradually stops, and they begin to overgrow with lateral branches.
It is believed that from the age of 3, a properly formed young bush practically does not need any intervention in its growth.
But if initially the plant had more than five zero-level shoots extending from the root, it would be necessary to cut out extra branches earlier. If this is not done, the shoots will begin to weaken and dry on their own due to the lack of light. The following are to be removed and trimmed on honeysuckle in the fall:
- powerful tops on branches that have slowed down or have already stopped growing;
- growing from the base of the bush;
- short, weak shoots that do not have time to mature for winter;
- diseased, dry and damaged branches.
Mass fruiting in honeysuckle comes with strong annual shoots, so they cannot be shortened. The main attention when cutting light-loving culture is given to branches directed deep into the crown. They prevent the growth of neighboring shoots, prevent pollination and the development of berries. They cut out first.
How and when to trim the honeysuckle, if the adult bush gives all the smaller yields? From eight to ten years old, honeysuckle is aging, and it needs rejuvenating pruning, including:
- serious crown thinning,
- pruning of all branches weakened by pests or diseases;
- removal of old branches and their replacement by tops or branching located near the base of the bush;
- cut the branches that have stopped growing to transfer to strong branches or tops located closer to the base of the bush.
- pruning dry branches to live, intact tissue.
The cutting areas of large branches must be treated with garden pitch. If the bush is running, and thinning is not possible, it is necessary to remove the entire crown above 50 cm from the root collar, so that from next season to begin the formation of honeysuckle again.
