My Fat Honeysuckle

Craig Cowing

This is my fat honeysuckle which I collected from our backyard in Maine. I'd highly recommend this genus for anyone who wants something that will develop quickly. This specimen was in tough shape when I collected it. A main trunk had broken and was dead, and the interior of the tree, it turned out, had rotted and was hollow. You can see in the picture that you can see right through it where I carved out the rotten wood.

The tree is approximately 65 years old. All the growth you see is new this year. If I had let the shoots grow out untouched they would easily be over 3 feet long by now. The tree at present is 24" high not counting the pot, which is a 20" pot.

Craig Cowing
Zone 5b+

Attached Images

honeysuckle.1.jpg (39.1 KB, 602 views)

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bnsaijim

Craig,

Coming along nicely! Still have a pic of it after you dug it?

Definitely an underrated species!

Jim

Tony

That's a nice one, Craig.

Craig Cowing

Thanks for the complments. I'm anxius to see what I get for growth the second season, if this is what it can do immediately after being collected. The great thing about honeysuckle is that you can collect them with no roots. The plant grows so quickly it just makes roots as quickly as it makes shoots. Early in the season I found that it suckered profusely, usually in clusters near the base. Nick Lenz says that in the first year you need to let these shoots grow a bit so the tree can make new roots, but after a short while they can come off. I started taking off the suckers when upper growth began to come in. I find now that it does not sucker much at all, just occasionally, I suppose because it has a lot of growth higher up.

This first picture is while it was still in the ground. The trunk leaning off to the left is the one I cut off. You can see the stub in the first picture I posted to the left at the base. The trunk had been slammed by a falling branch and was broken about 3 ft. up.

Attached Images

med.honeysuckle.before.jpg (28.1 KB, 389 views)

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Craig Cowing

Here is another pic whili it was still in the ground. I was so anxious for the ground to thaw out that I started working on the trunk while it was still in the ground. It was warm enough in the late winter to do that comfortably.

Attached Images

med.honeysuckle.5.jpg (44.0 KB, 360 views)

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Craig Cowing

One last pic for now. This was taken in April, when I had dug it up and had done some more work on the trunk. The dark area on the lower left is a cluster of suckers. Lenz suggests that when you get buds at places you want, you remove all but two, allow them to grow a little, then remove the weaker one, leaving the strongest. Otherwise you'll get a wart at the site.

The branches need to be wired outward while still new shoots. I found Colin Lewis' method of loosely wiring new shoots to work well, to provide direction without rigidly holding the shoot in place. It doesn't take long for a shoot on a honeysuckle to lignify and stiffen up. Once it's stiff, it will not move. The leaves are opposite, so the way you prune new growth is to take out the center so that the new buds growing at the base of the older leaves will come out. This is how you get ramification.

The thickest new branch is at the lower right and actually comes out of the back. I let it develop there because nothing had come out of that side and I wanted a pad of growth there. The branch at the base is over 3/8" thick. There is a bud growing in the perfect spot on the right lower trunk, so that will help fill it out nicely.

It's not ready for show, obviously, but I think it will in a year or two.

Definitely a keeper. Now I've got my eye on an equally decrepit specimen growing in my present backyard.

Craig Cowing
Zone 5b+

Attached Images

med.honeysuckle.before.jpg (50.9 KB, 394 views)

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splinter

Very impressive - it looks great!

GaryS

I like it, I like it.

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GaryS

TreeBay

This looks like it's coming along nicely. How high on the main trunk is it alive at this point?

You might take a look in bonsaiTALK Links for techniques-> Deadwood There are 1 or 2 articles in there on hardening deadwood using Minwax Wood Hardener. Kathy Shaner has been advocating this lately, and Michael Persiano has been a proponent of that product too.

I have a huge untreated wisteria stump that rotted away from the inside. Since honeysuckle is a vine, it probably wants to do the same.

Regards,

Matt

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