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Advice for honeysuckle on trellis

DedekindDedekind Posts: 172
in Plants
Hi,

I have a well-established honeysuckle growing in my fence. I never saw it in full splendour as it has been cut in the past two years due to different building works/circumstances.

The past year it has grown a lot, it spans 3 fence panels horizontally and I've been trying to train it that way so that it covers as much as possible.

However, it is very "stringy" for lack of a better word. It seems to be a stringy plant so obviously nothing wrong there, but I was wondering if you had any advice as how to train it in order to create more of a "green wall" effect, especially for privacy.

I started trying to untangle one of the panels and use those strings combined with the next panel to form a thicker plant, but it's a complete mess and mixture of new green stems and old leafless brown stems..

Maybe this plant will not achieve the effect I'm looking for, but if there's something to do I'd like to try as it's well established and mature.

Posts

  • CloggieCloggie Posts: 1,457
    @Dedekind, I've had a few honeysuckles and seen them grow to full size but I've never had a tidy one!  They are scruffy plants but do provide some screening.  I grew one to scramble over a delapidated abandoned garage that was visible from my garden but didn't belong to me and it did the trick.  It was near the patio and bins so the fragrance was welcome.  It does tend to put on a lot of thatch over the years so that it ends up quite a heavy tangled mass of dead strings with leaves and flowers covering them.  

    It also suckers where it touches so you get new plants rooting where the ends of strings touch the ground.

    Mine got too heavy for the support so I gave it a drastic haircut and it was back hiding stuff again within two seasons.  Very useful plant also for a dark, shady damp place which is where I planted it but the tops sought the sun.

    Hope this helps you decide if it's right for you.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I don't think honeysuckle is very well suited to growing on a trellis. Difficult to make them look tidy in that sort of situation.
    As @Cloggie describes- they're better for scrambling over buildings, sheds, garages etc, or for through hedging.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    Honeysuckle has a wildness about it, leaves can drop on the evergreen ones all year.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • DedekindDedekind Posts: 172
    Thanks. I may consider planting something else nearby to act as a better screen
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