Honeysuckle Is A Vitamin Press. Growing, Planting And Caring For Edible Honeysuckle. Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Many types of honeysuckle are very often grown in gardens as beautiful ornamental shrubs, well suited for groups, alleys and arbors; Russian species bloom in early summer, that is, in late May to mid-June. We will talk with you about Blue Honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea), which has many names, but is often called Edible Honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle is a straight-growing strongly branched shrub up to 2 m high with brown scaly bark and pubescent oblong leaves. Already in early May, beautiful yellow flowers appear on the bushes, attracting insects with their aroma. Flowering is extended in time for a whole month, which allows the bulk of flowers to avoid frost damage and ensures a stable annual yield. The berries are dark purple with a bluish bloom, have a thick coloring juice, which is reminiscent of blueberries, but their sizes and shapes on the bush are different, as a rule, the shape is oblong. The taste of the berries is sweet and sour, depending on the degree of ripeness.

Planting honeysuckle

For edible honeysuckle, choose an open and sunny place, but protected from the wind. It is convenient to plant bushes along the edge of the plot with a distance between plants from 0.5 (dense hedge) to 1.5 m. The soil should be moisture-absorbing, but without stagnant water. Almost any type of soil.

It is better to plant honeysuckle in the fall. Plants planted in spring take root less well, besides, this should be done early - in April, before flowering.

Most varieties are self-fertile; to ensure cross-pollination, you need at least two different varieties blooming at the same time, and preferably three to five. Planting material (2–3-year-old seedlings) should look like this: the aerial part consists of 4–5 skeletal shoots 25–35 cm long and at least 5 mm thick at the base, roots not shorter than 25 cm, with 4–5 branches.

Immediately before planting, planting pits are prepared (40x50x40 cm). Organic fertilizers are introduced into them (up to two buckets, depending on the type of soil), as well as superphosphate (up to 200 g) and potassium salt (35–40 g).

Requirements for growing honeysuckle

Location: bushes bloom and grow better in lighted places and in partial shade. Bloom weakly under strong shading. Most honeysuckles, especially the climbing species, are light-requiring and prefer open, sunny areas. However, forest species can tolerate light shade and will thrive in a canopy garden. In such conditions, higher air humidity remains, which is especially important for these plants.

Soil: Honeysuckle grows well in all soils, but thrives on loose and drained soils. Too dry areas, as well as closed basins, are considered unsuitable for planting. The soil mixture consists of turf, humus or peat and sand, taken in a ratio of 3: 1: 1. The optimum soil acidity is 7.5 - 8.5. On heavy damp soils, as well as on poor sandy soils, honeysuckle grows poorly. Drainage from broken brick or gravel is required with a layer of 5-7 cm.

Preparing for winter: no special preparation for overwintering is required. Only sometimes the ends of the shoots are slightly damaged by frost, which does not reduce the decorative effect of the plants.

Honeysuckle care

In the first 3-4 years after planting, honeysuckle grows slowly. At this time, you only need to weed and loosen the soil - but do it carefully, since the plant has a superficial root system. It is better to immediately mulch the root circle with humus, peat or dry soil. Thanks to this, moisture will also be preserved, especially necessary for honeysuckle in the first half of summer, during the intensive growth of shoots. With insufficient watering, even dessert varieties will taste bitter.

From 6-8 years of age, plants are pruned, removing old and damaged branches under the base. So that the crown does not become too thick, they get rid of numerous root shoots. The tops of young shoots, which have the maximum number of flower buds, are not cut off.

In autumn, honeysuckle is fed with phosphorus and potassium fertilizers - up to 30 g of superphosphate and up to 20 g of potassium salt per 1 sq. m. In the spring, you can use nitrogen fertilizers (30 g of urea for the same area).

The first fruits of early varieties of honeysuckle appear at the end of May, and mass ripening occurs in six to seven days. It is rather stretched out, and it is better not to postpone the collection, since in most varieties the berries fall off easily.

Saplings begin to bear fruit already in the second or third year after planting, the maximum number of berries is given in the fourth or fifth year. With good care, honeysuckle is capable of producing high yields for 20–25 years.

Reproduction of honeysuckle

Honeysuckle can be propagated by seed and vegetative methods.

The most effective method of green cuttings … After flowering or during the period when the first fruits appear from strong annual shoots of the current year, cuttings are cut using the middle part of the shoot. A cutting 8–12 cm long should have two or three buds and a couple of leaflets at the crown. Cut cuttings are treated with growth stimulants. The soil mixture is prepared from peat and sand in a ratio of 1: 3. Cuttings are planted obliquely according to the 5x5 cm scheme in ordinary garden greenhouses or greenhouses. They need to maintain the optimum humidity of the substrate and air (up to 85%) and a temperature of 20-25 ° C. To reduce moisture evaporation, the film is shaded with burlap. Under such conditions, after two to two and a half weeks, the cuttings develop a root system, and by the beginning of September it will be fully formed and then they can be planted for growing in the garden.

Young plants, branches of which are located close to the ground, are conveniently propagated by horizontal layers. In late April - early May, annual shoots are bent to the ground and pinched at their top, then they are spud with moist earth or humus. And during the growing season, they keep the soil moist. By the fall, the roots are formed at the layers - the plants are separated and transplanted.

You can also use the division of the bush. In early spring or autumn, after the end of leaf fall, 3-5-year-old bushes with a loose crown are dug up and divided into two or three parts

Diseases and pests

Honeysuckle aphid

When the honeysuckle-cereal aphid appears on young shoots, the leaves turn yellow completely or in spots, or fold across or obliquely. Lemon yellow larvae migrate to cereals, and in the fall they return and lay hibernating eggs. From the honeysuckle apical aphid, the apical leaves bend in half, curl and die, the growth of shoots stops.

In summer, they are sprayed with infusions of garlic, tobacco, pepper. More effective early spring treatments with 0.2% actellik, rogor, confidor, drugs "Aktara", "Eleksar".

Honeysuckle mite

Ticks thrive in wet conditions, especially in thickened and shaded plantings. Honeysuckle is affected by several types of mites. If dark shapeless "blots" appear on the underside of the leaves, and at the end of summer all the leaves on the bush turn brown, dry out and curl, this is caused by the appearance of a microscopic honeysuckle rinkaphytoptus.

From damage by a honeysuckle mite, the edges of the leaves become corrugated, the leaves fall off prematurely. In plants weakened by the mite, the upper side of the leaves is covered with sooty fungi in the form of a black coating. It is useful to thin out thickened plantings, treatment with acaricides (Omite, Tedion, Mauritius), and at the end of June with a 0.257th actellik, a rotor, and a confidor.

Shield

These small pests, covered with a shield on top, adhere tightly to the bark and suck the juice from the branches and shoots. Acacia pseudo-scale, apple comma-shaped scale, willow scale are ubiquitous and can cause death of plants. Wrestling - double spraying of honeysuckle bushes in late June - July with an interval of 10-15 days with rogor or actellik. The branches on which the scabbard settled at an air temperature above 0 ° C can be doused with kerosene.

Leaf-eating pests

Several species of insects feed on the leaves of honeysuckle, without causing serious damage, but reducing the decorative effect of shrubs. The caterpillar of the honeysuckle striped sawfly eats holes of various shapes. The caterpillars roughly eat away the tissue of the leaf blade; only the petiole and large veins are not touched. Since pests on honeysuckle are few in number, they are eliminated mechanically by picking them up by hand. If twisted leaves appear on the growing shoots at the beginning of summer, this is the result of the vital activity of a currant or rose leaf roll. Narrow long passages are made by the larvae of the honeysuckle miner and the honeysuckle moth. Sawflies, moths, and herbivorous bugs settle on the leaves. During the period of mass emergence of pests, 0.05% decis, Inta-Vir and Eleksar preparations are used.

Honeysuckle toefly

The caterpillar of the honeysuckle fingerfly feeds on the pulp of fruits and seeds. Because of it, unripe fruits darken, shrivel and crumble. The drug "Inta-Vir", infusions of tomato and potato tops.

Honeysuckle with edible fruits should not be sprayed with pesticides in early June, until the harvest is fully harvested.

Fungal diseases

With high air humidity, optimal conditions are created for the appearance of various spots on the leaves of honeysuckle, from which they are deformed and gradually dry out. With ramulariasis, brown spots are visible; cercosporosis - rounded brown spots that fade over time. In some years, powdery mildew is found with a characteristic whitish bloom, especially on the underside of the leaves. Early spring spraying of bushes with 0.2% fundozol, copper-soap liquid (100 g of copper sulfate per 10 liters of water). Powdery mildew - Topaz preparation, 0.57 solution of soda ash, pollination with colloidal sulfur or wood ash.

Phytoviruses

Viruses of potato and cucumber mosaic, widespread in many crops, can infect honeysuckle in some years. Light green spots and mottling appear on the leaves along the central veins. In some edible cultivars, as yet in isolated cases, a mosaic virus has been registered with a characteristic yellow-white mosaic pattern on the leaf.

Maintaining a high level of agricultural technology and the acquisition of healthy planting material are the main control measures. The infected bushes are dug up and burned.