Honeysuckle: The Old Variety Does Not Spoil The Garden. Care, Cultivation, Reproduction. Varieties. Photo

Edible honeysuckle stands out among berry bushes for its high winter hardiness and unusually early fruiting. She successfully blended into our difficult climate, yields a harvest every year, despite the cold winters and spring frosts. Everyone in our family loves honeysuckle berries - for their excellent taste, for their healing properties.

We have been growing honeysuckle for three decades. It all started with a trip to the summer cottage village of Vyritsa near St. Petersburg, where I met the famous Leningrad breeder Philip Kuzmich Teterev. He literally infected me with his interest in Far Eastern plants, and he spoke about honeysuckle with special love, ironically calling it “shameless” for the biological feature of the plant “undressing”, peeling off thin strips of bark.

Content:

• Honeysuckle varieties
• Honeysuckle care
• Pruning honeysuckle
• Reproduction of honeysuckle

Honeysuckle varieties

The basis of our collection of honeysuckle was formed by the varieties created by F. K. Teterev at the Pavlovsk experimental station. In my opinion, some of them are not at all inferior to the novelties of breeding.

For example, the Pavlovskaya variety of medium early ripening. Its berries are cylindrical in shape, good taste, and little crumble. The bush is of medium height, old branches tend to fall apart. The chosen one amazes with large (up to 3.6 cm) elongated-cylindrical berries of excellent taste, they do not crumble for a long time. The bush is compact, no more than 1.5 m high.

Of the modern varieties of honeysuckle of the Pavlovsk Experimental Station, the Nymph of medium ripening is especially good. Its large, spindle-shaped, dessert-like berries have a pleasant aroma and hardly crumble. In my opinion, this is one of the most productive varieties. Morena's berries ripen a little earlier, they resemble a jug in shape and also have good taste.

Recently, I bought honeysuckle varieties from other breeding institutions: Long-fruited, Indiga, their berries are large, sweet and sour, and from Strawberry they have, in accordance with the name, a delicate strawberry flavor. The fruits of the Vishnevaya variety are original - they are round in shape and dark cherry color, they hang on the bushes almost until autumn.

Honeysuckle care

Among the advantages of honeysuckle is its resistance to diseases, I have not noticed any signs of any ailment on the bushes for all the years that I have been growing honeysuckle. Until recently, there were no pests, except bullfinches, in winter they sometimes peck out flower buds. Feathers can be scared away by hanging shiny objects such as old laser discs.

However, the damage from bullfinches is small. Willow scabbards are more troublesome for honeysuckle. This pest is very small, and in some nurseries from where I get new products, it seems that they do not notice it, sending out infected seedlings. Meanwhile, scale insects can cause noticeable damage: the shoots weakened by them freeze in winter or give small berries. The drug Aktara helps well from this scourge.

Caring for honeysuckle is not difficult: after it has borne fruit, I loosen the soil trampled during harvest and mulch it with humus. Plants are very responsive to organics.

Pruning honeysuckle

Honeysuckle has such a feature: it branches heavily, with age the plantings thicken. Therefore, I must thin them out. I do this in the fall every 2-3 years.

I cut off 4-5-year-old wood, and remove the lodging branches in the lower part of the crown. This simple operation helps to maintain high yields for many years.

Reproduction of honeysuckle

I propagate honeysuckle by green cuttings. I cut the cuttings in the morning when the berries are ripening. With good drainage, shading and regular spraying, cuttings take root quite well. I make the cutter to the minimum height. FK Teterev emphasized that the distance between the soil and the shelter (glass, film) should be no more than 10 cm.

Green cuttings are a painstaking process, and in some regions, cuttings of good varieties are also difficult to obtain. Therefore, I believe that with a shortage of planting material, seed reproduction of honeysuckle is also justified.

In this case, varietal traits are not fully transmitted, however, seedlings quickly enter fruiting (in the 2-3rd year) and plants with the best qualities can be selected. It is also important that the seeds do not require stratification and can be sown both in autumn and spring.

In the past, I have often used this method, several successful seedlings still bear fruit on my site. At the same time, we had to part with some varietal plants that did not live up to expectations. Of course, it makes sense to sow only seeds of large-fruited dessert varieties.

Author: I. Pechurin, Yaroslavl region, Rybinsk