Propagation of edible honeysuckle by seeds. Reproduction of honeysuckle in the country: simple and effective methods Planting honeysuckle from seeds

03.11.2023

The safest thing, of course, is to purchase honeysuckle from familiar amateur gardeners, since it is possible to first inspect the bushes and evaluate their productivity.

I advise you to choose a different path: take one or two large berries (3.5-4 mm weighing 1.5 g or more) from the most productive bush with the most delicious berries and grow your own seedlings from their seeds. Everyone can do this.

I offer two methods of seed propagation of honeysuckle. I have tried both of them in practice several times and have become convinced of their effectiveness.

Method one

Select the seeds from the selected fruits and immediately, in June, sow them in a box with light fertile soil to a depth of 3-5 mm. It is better to cover the box with glass or film and keep it in partial shade (so that direct sunlight does not fall!). It is necessary to monitor soil moisture and regularly weed out. After 3 weeks, the first shoots will appear. They are easily recognized by their strong stems with two cotyledon leaves curved into a “boat”.

Before winter, 2 or even 4 more true leaves have time to grow: round, tender, covered with fluff. These green crumbs, however, are very winter-hardy and do not freeze out under a small layer of snow, even without shelter. Over the next summer, strong annuals grow from them (in a box), on which the first flower bud can already form.

Method two

Place the seeds on paper, fold it in half and store indoors until February. Before sowing, place the seeds in a cloth bag and soak in water for 3 days. Don't forget to change it regularly! After this, place the seeds along the edge of a deep plate covered with 2-3 layers of toilet paper. Make sure there is always water in the plate. To reduce its evaporation, the plate can be placed in a transparent plastic bag. After 2-4 weeks, when all the healthy seeds have sprouted, the seedlings need to be transplanted into a box (preferably with a piece of paper on which the seeds were lying). Plant at a distance of 3-5 cm (up to 10 cm). You can replant (dive) later - until autumn. However, the sooner you transplant the seedlings, the better: by the time frosts begin, they will have time to grow. Their roots do not break during a dive, because they are very strong and elastic, like springs. The planted plants are very tender; for the first one and a half to two months they need careful care. You need to make sure that the soil does not dry out, that the plants do not suffer from the sun, and if the box is covered with film, that they do not “cook” under it at noon. Weed regularly, do not allow oppression by weeds and moss.

Plant strong yearlings in a permanent place, preferably with a lump of soil; leave weak ones for another year in a box for growing. There is no need to insulate the boxes for the winter. You can also grow seedlings in this way on the balcony.

With the second method of growing, annuals are weaker than with the first, but their yield is higher - up to 100%.

Honeysuckle needs to be replanted in the fall, and as early as possible: as soon as the leaves turn yellow and begin to fall off. The earth is still warm at this time, so the transplanted plants have time to take root before the start of winter and do not get sick in the spring. And honeysuckle’s reserve of winter hardiness is so great that it is not afraid of weakening by replanting before winter. In spring, honeysuckle begins to vegetate so early that it is usually not possible to replant it before buds open. If you replant a plant with open buds (or even with leaves, without soil), it becomes very sick and does not take root well. In addition, during spring planting, it is possible that the budding buds may break off, especially the renewal buds located at the root collar. Therefore, seedlings should be taken only by the tops.

In just a year or two, it will be possible to judge their size and taste from the first berries. Seedlings with bitter or very small berries must be discarded immediately (usually there are very few of these or none at all). The quality of berries and yield may still change for the better (or worse) depending on the care in the first 3-5 years of fruiting, after which the characteristics of the seedling generally do not change.

Victor ZARAHOVICH

Garden honeysuckle, which is not at all difficult to plant and care for in the open ground, is an erect and tall bush.

Until the age of seven they have the ability to reach a height of up to 1.8 m.

They are densely branched, have a spreading crown, and reach two meters in diameter.

On average, fifteen brushes grow on one bush. Every year, young cuttings grow from last year's growths from buds.

In the gaps of the lower foliage of young cuttings, peduncles are formed, and in the future - fruit ovaries.

The yield of the coming year gradually builds up throughout the summer days in the gaps of the upper foliage in the buds of the flower stalks. It must be taken into account that the rhizomes extend half a meter beyond the boundaries of the crown. And the rhizomes extend especially deeply into the soil, since the root system is taprooted. At a depth of 80 cm, the largest number of sucking roots is located.

The location of the buds and foliage of the crop is particularly characteristic: on the branches they grow opposite each other in pairs, and often have stipules. A location arranged in this way immediately reveals honeysuckle seedlings, in the sense that it is difficult to confuse them with other vegetation. The fruits are infructescences formed as a result of the growth of bracts, which are more often called berries.

Edible honeysuckle is a winter-hardy plant: its buds and wood have the ability to withstand severe frosts down to – 50 C, and its rhizomes and flowering buds up to – 40 C. Peduncles, buds and young ovaries are not afraid of cold temperatures down to – 8 C. The plant loves sunny areas and loams. , well flavored with organic matter, with a normal acid reaction. In general, vegetation grows well in shade too, but fruiting declines.

Due to the fact that honeysuckle is cross-pollinated, it requires suitable company. To ensure a complete harvest, it is recommended to plant the crop in a group of four plants of different varietal species.

In hot and dry weather conditions, especially on spring days and early summer days, the crop needs to be irrigated, because it is moisture-loving. In areas with high air humidity, it also feels excellent, due to the fact that it prefers moist air.

But it does not tolerate stagnation or nearby groundwater. In such unfavorable circumstances, its rhizomes rot. The reaction of the honeysuckle crop to acidic soils is negative: yields decrease and the foliage fades. To a much greater extent, honeysuckle favors organic nutrition, but does not like mineral ones.

Growing crops from seeds

From the last ten days of September to the first ten days of October, we will try to grow honeysuckle from seeds at home. To do this, take a wide container and fill it with sand. We irrigate it thoroughly and sprinkle the seeds, then sprinkle them with sand and irrigate them again.
We cover the container with a film cover and place it on the shelf of the refrigerator compartment below in the compartment for vegetables.
Once every half month we spray the sand with water and carry out the operation before the onset of spring days.
In March, we prepare a box made of wood about 20 cm high and fill it with fertile soil mixture to about 10 cm, irrigate it well with water. Sprinkle sand mixed with seeds on the ground in an even layer, sprinkle it with 2 cm of soil, compact it a little and sprinkle with water.
Next, we cover the box with a film cover and place it outside if the temperature regime is more or less warm, excluding frost. It is recommended to place the box so that the sun's rays fall on it for at least several hours a day.
With the first shoots, remove the film. To irrigate still small sprouts, it is better to use a spray bottle.
Cultivating seedlings in a box throughout the summer season. Then, in the first ten days of September, before frost sets in, we move them to unprotected ground. To do this, we prepare a narrow ridge, fencing it with boards.
Sprinkle the ridge with mulch from withered leaves or pine needles, this will help reduce the evaporation of moisture.

We purchase seeds at markets or from neighbors who grow excellent fruiting honeysuckle. In the second case, mash the berries a little and fill them with water for an hour. Then we immediately sow the seeds in unprotected soil.

To do this, we prepare the ridge by loosening the soil and pouring a 3 cm layer of sand onto it.

Trying to evenly pour the seeds along with water into the ridge and sprinkle with a layer of moistened soil.

The initial shoots will appear after a month, only the pampered stems will be protected from birds and precipitation by covering them with a film covering.

A good variation is to place metal arcs over the ridge, covering them with film, but do not cover the ends to ensure aeration.

On hot days, it is more successful to replace the film coating with spunbond or lutrasil, or throw on a regular gauze cloth so that the seedlings do not become burned by the sun's rays.

In general, crops from seeds are grown quite rarely, because the initial fruits will have to wait about five years. At the same time, the vegetation wastes the characteristics of its varietal species. For this reason, summer residents often resort to propagating the crop by cuttings or layering.

Vegetation

It is allowed to propagate vegetation by dividing the bush only if it has reached the age of ten years, but not more than fifteen. The wooden trunk is especially hard, which means you can’t do without a saw for the job. When dividing a bush, it should be taken into account that each part will contain at least two skeletal branches, the same number of stems, and the length of each root system must be at least twenty centimeters. We eliminate the branches using pruning shears, saving segments of forty centimeters in length.

A particularly effective method of propagating honeysuckle is propagation by cuttings in the spring. It provides the opportunity to obtain up to two hundred full-fledged plants from just one bush. When preparing cuttings, we select especially powerful one-year-old branches with a diameter of at least seven millimeters. It is recommended to cut them off before the buds open and active movement of juices (approximately in the last ten days of March). We divide the cuttings into fifteen-centimeter pieces and plant them in a greenhouse structure or in unprotected soil if it has already melted.

We will deepen these parts by ten centimeters, while the buds remain on the surface.

To increase the chances of survival and make the adaptation period more painless, we cover the cuttings with a film cover or a covering sheet.

30 days after rooting, the rhizome will begin to grow.

It is also possible to propagate honeysuckle through green cuttings. Experienced summer residents claim that especially high-quality cuttings are obtained precisely from young green cuttings that were cut at the time of growth cessation.

During this period, the fruits of the plant acquire their characteristic blue tint. The thickness of the young layer is now approximately eight millimeters.

In the next autumn, grown and strong shoots can be moved to a permanent growing area, using fertilizers containing potassium, powdered ash and superphosphate. We will make subsequent replenishment only after three years. We do not feed the crop any more in the spring. It is necessary to irrigate the vegetation in a timely manner and add organic matter after harvesting.

The crop spreads its buds much earlier than other garden vegetation, so it is better to plant it in the fall: in the last ten days of September or in the first ten days of October. By this period, the activity of the movement of juices has already slowed down, and the culture began to “hibernate”, and, therefore, it will not be particularly painful to endure stress.

As usual, the planting material is rooted cuttings. This vegetation is excellently pollinated, so it is better to place several varietal species nearby, but not too close to each other.

The gaps between them should be at least one and a half meters. The territory should not be blown away by through winds and should not be located at a significant elevation. The crop feels most successful near fences and fences, as well as in the vicinity of other shrubs, but only on condition that they do not block it from sunlight.

Before planting vegetation in a permanent place of growth, you should:

Eliminate all weeds ahead of time, especially perennials.
Since the vegetation is undemanding to the soil, you don’t have to worry about this. Sandy loam soil, loam and forest soil are excellent. The only exception would be excessively sandy soil. If the soil is too acidic, add dolomite flour, lime or chalk.
We make a groove with a recess of approximately half a meter and a diameter of half a meter. If we are growing a crop in rows, we keep gaps of two meters between the bushes, and three meters between the rows. Add three tablespoons of nitrophoska, two mugs of ash powder and a small amount of organic matter to the dug ditch, mix everything with soil, irrigate it and cover the ditch with a film cover for five days. By immersing the sprout in the groove, we do not allow the root system to become tangled and air spaces to appear.
We deepen the neck of the root system by no more than three centimeters. Spring days are especially important. Then the sprouts require special care work; their future viability will depend on it.
Plantings require a hilling procedure, followed by digging up the soil around the circumference of the growth to a depth of five centimeters, and then laying out mulch from a peat or manure composition.

Crop care work

Honeysuckle culture is particularly unpretentious, and this applies to both edible and decorative subspecies. During the initial seven years, the shrub grows especially intensively, then it slows down its development and produces fruit, growing in one area for up to twenty years.

The main principles of care work:

We constantly irrigate the bush, especially during the fruiting period. Every day one plant requires at least one bucket of water, and in hot weather from two buckets or more.
It is necessary to deoxidize the soil to create a neutral soil composition. We carry out this event annually once during the summer season, using wood ash powder, which is diluted in water.
In late autumn, it is imperative to introduce nutrient mixtures and nourish the bush so that it will delight you with excellent harvests in the coming summer season. We hold this event a year later, using a mix of 4 kg for this purpose. compost, 2 tbsp. l. superphosphate and 100 gr. wood ash powder. On spring days, you can add 15 grams of ammonium nitrate. per sq. m.
Despite the fact that the honeysuckle crop, as usual, does not suffer from anything, nevertheless, in order to prevent ailments and eliminate harmful insects, it is still recommended to disinfect it with chemical compounds, but if harmful insects are not visible, then we can skip this stage.
The soil around the circumference of the crop must be loosened periodically and weeds must be constantly eliminated in order to achieve aeration of the rhizomes. In September, after the end of fruiting, the ground needs to be dug up to prepare the bush for the winter period.
Sometimes it is necessary to eliminate old branches so that they do not shade younger layers of vegetation. For the first time, cutting should be done no earlier than the bush reaches five years and is fully formed. It is better to carry out this procedure in the first ten days of April.

About pests and diseases

With the appearance of bulk berries, the possibility that harmful insects will appear on them cannot be ruled out:

leaf rollers and caterpillar representatives, they love to destroy the pampered tops of young shoots
Often crops are affected by aphids; this harmful insect also spoils other garden crops by sucking juice from the foliage, as a result it actively turns yellow and withers
the willow scale insect can also take a liking to honeysuckle bushes: we inspect the bark of the vegetation for the presence of convex tubercles, this pest sucks out the vital juices and can provoke the death of branches and even completely destroy the entire plant
Powdery mildew sometimes appears on the foliage; it can be actively suppressed with “Fitosporin”

Many varietal types of garden crops

To determine the correct selection, they should be divided into those that only please the eye with their flowering. And those who delight with fruits. After this determination, you can proceed to the next selection - according to taste characteristics, size, etc.

Honeysuckle is a garden shrub. In central Russia, it bears fruit first: by mid-June, honeysuckle gives gardeners delicious fruits comparable in taste to strawberries.

This culture is propagated by cuttings and seeds. Cuttings are carried out according to the standard scheme, but propagation using seeds can be done in two ways.

More on them later. Seed germination time is three to four weeks. It is better to start germinating seeds before the start of the gardening season, since the seedlings will initially be very small, and they should be grown in greenhouse conditions (indoors or in a mini-greenhouse) before planting in open ground.

However, if you didn’t manage to start in advance, you shouldn’t despair either - honeysuckle grows quite well right away in open ground.

Difference with cuttings

There are several points that are worth paying attention to if you decide to grow honeysuckle from seeds.

Up to two-thirds of seedlings grown from berry seeds will have all the advantages of their variety (for example, flavor or berry size). However, there is no way to immediately distinguish them from seedlings that have lost their varietal properties. Sometimes, as a result of growing from seeds, the berries become better, sometimes worse. So, if you want to 100% preserve all the characteristics of the mother plant, choose vegetative methods for propagating honeysuckle - cuttings or layering, rather than sowing.
Plants from seeds begin to bear fruit in 4-5 years, while honeysuckle grown from cuttings will delight you with berries a year after rooting.
Sowing honeysuckle is cheaper than buying cuttings. But at the same time, much more attention is required to the seedlings, especially in the first stages, before rooting.
You can sow seeds at any time of the year, grow honeysuckle and plant it in the garden.
To get seeds you just need to take the largest and ripest fruits from the bush.

Propagation by seeds without seedlings

Planting takes place in June. You will need seeds from ripe honeysuckle berries. The fruits should be left in the sun for an hour. During this time, a plot of land is prepared.

Choose a sunny place where there is no strong shading and the sun shines at least 6 hours a day. Before sowing honeysuckle, weeds in the future bed are destroyed so that they do not damage the young tender shoots.

For each berry you will need a shallow hole (up to 2 cm), which can be made with your finger. Leave at least 10 cm between the holes. “Squeeze” the seeds from the fruit into the moistened holes: one berry per hole. Sprinkle a centimeter of soil on top. To prevent the holes from getting lost, mark them with garden markers (sticks).

The finished bed is covered with polyethylene or covering material. Open the ground for watering once a day. The first watering is carried out with a spray bottle.

If you don’t want to do “piece work,” you can crush the berries into a glass of water and stretch a sheet of thin toilet paper over the garden bed. It needs to be watered with water and seeds. The paper allows the seeds to immediately take hold and be visible.

The honeysuckle bed should be fenced with planks to prevent the soil from being washed away. It is necessary to loosen the soil shallowly, taking care that the seeds do not end up on the surface.

When planting honeysuckle seeds in a garden bed, pay attention to the weather: heavy rains can wash away the soil and damage the plantings. If the weather is bad, you can build a greenhouse over the honeysuckle. It will also save you from extreme heat and dryness. In dry and hot weather, honeysuckle seedlings need a special watering regime.

You should wait for germination no earlier than 2 weeks. After the sprouts appear, the film is removed and the weeds are carefully removed.

Throughout the warm season, the seedlings are simply watered and weeded, leaving them until winter. For the cold season, honeysuckle is insulated. In spring, additional feeding of seedlings is carried out. In the second year, the seedlings need to be pruned, giving another year for rooting in an individual place.

The second option for seed propagation of honeysuckle: through “seedlings”

Seeds are harvested during the season. Large berries (they can be picked from a bush or purchased at the market) are dried in the sun for several days.

Next, the berries need to be “released” into a small container of water, making sure that there is no berry pulp left on them, otherwise they will rot and not grow. Drain the water from the container and repeat washing the seeds until the seeds are clean. Next, they need to be thoroughly dried and stored in a dark place, not forgetting to sign.

Another way to store honeysuckle seeds until planting season is in a food container in the refrigerator. You need to pour dry sand into the container, lightly moistening it with a spray bottle once every two weeks.

Honeysuckle is sowed in autumn or spring. Each berry produces 10 or more sprouts. Before planting, the container is transferred from the refrigerator to the light.

A long box up to 15 cm deep and up to 30 cm wide is well suited for seedlings. The secret of good germination is in a special substrate through which small honeysuckle sprouts can easily hatch. The soil for sowing is prepared as follows: humus + soil + sand (equal quantities) + half a glass of ash. The soil turns out to be light and does not crack when it dries out. The soil for disinfection is baked for 15 minutes in the oven.

Before planting, the substrate is well moistened, after which shallow grooves need to be made in it (depth to the phalanx of the finger). We try to maintain the maximum possible distance between the furrows.

We sow the seeds in a row, in increments of 2-3 cm, and lightly sprinkle with soil. Immediately after watering, wrap the box with film to keep the seeds warm and moist. Monitor the substrate moisture!

We remove the film when shoots appear. Honeysuckle seedlings love well-lit, draft-free places. You should not overwater sprouted honeysuckle, as the roots of tender seedlings may rot, which will lead to the death of the plants.

The seedlings are watered and ventilated, gradually accustoming them to natural conditions. By spring, 3-5 true leaves form on the plants.

If the box will spend the winter in the garden, during the cold season it needs to be covered indoors or buried in a wheel tire, covering it from above - this way the bush will not be afraid of frost, and the box will be protected from rodents. For covering, roofing felt, paws of coniferous trees, special covering material, or just an old sheepskin coat are suitable.

Seedlings from seeds - picking and planting in their “own” place

In the spring, the sprouts grown from seeds burst into peaks, planting them wider. If growing occurs indoors, then each seedling is planted in its own cup. When picking, it is important to spread the root of the plant well. If we are talking about seedlings grown in the ground, they are simply thinned out, leaving the strongest shoots.

It is worth replanting seedlings to a permanent place of residence after they have overwintered 2 winters. In order to make their first years of life easier, you need to feed them with complex vitamin-mineral fertilizers. It would also be useful to add ash under the spine.

Choose a permanent place for honeysuckle grown from seeds in the sun, so the berry will be sweeter. To replant, you need to dig a wide hole the depth of your palm, put humus with ash and mineral fertilizers under the root, and water it. Then the seedlings are planted in the hole with a lump of earth, slightly pressing along the edges. Sprinkle with earth.

For all plantings, the soil must be protected from drying out. Sawdust, humus, and spruce branches are suitable for this.

Video - How to grow honeysuckle from seeds

Honeysuckle

The berries ripen gradually starting from the first half of June, when there are no other berries in the garden yet. Honeysuckle has healing properties, contains vitamins, P-active substances, sugars, organic acids, minerals. Honeysuckle bushes are beautiful, compact, frost-resistant, and are little susceptible to disease . Caring for honeysuckle bushes is similar in technology to caring for currants and gooseberries. Honeysuckle seedlings must be planted thickly, approximately 2x1 m, and under the protection of taller bushes.

Although honeysuckle is photophilous, its berries become smaller due to direct sunlight. Honeysuckle begins to bear fruit in the third or fourth year after planting annual seedlings. The berries of this crop easily fall off, so when picking, it is best to lay any material under the honeysuckle bushes, be it paper or film. The berries of honeysuckle are black, with a bluish bloom, elongated and oval or spindle-shaped, up to two centimeters in length and up to 8 millimeters in size. width. From one bush you can harvest from half a kilogram to 3 kg of honeysuckle berries. Honeysuckle berries are consumed fresh, compotes, juices, and raw jams are prepared from them.

Varieties

Amphora, Blue Spindle, Cinderella, Blue Bird, Bazhovskaya.

Honeysuckle propagation

Honeysuckle is propagated by seeds, cuttings and dividing the bush. It is best to propagate honeysuckle bushes by green cuttings or layering, as is done when propagating gooseberries or currants. In early or mid-May, honeysuckle blooms with fragrant light yellow flowers, which are pollinated by insects, and tolerate frosts well up to 7. The flowering of this crop is extended. In the stage Seedlings sown in boxes in the fall are planted with two to four leaves on the ridges.

They are watered and mulched. Honeysuckle does not tolerate drought and responds positively to watering and fertilizing with manure. Adult bushes are fed with ammonium nitrate or urea (6-12 g per square meter) in early spring. This is the first third of the annual norm.

The second third is applied immediately after flowering (late May).

In June, honeysuckle berries ripen, seven to ten days earlier than strawberries. Amateur gardeners extract seeds from selected bushes based on the yield and quality of the berries. They are washed from the pulp in a mug of water, then scattered in a box with fertile soil.

Seedling care

First, the surface is leveled and watered from a watering can with a fine strainer. The sown honeysuckle seeds are sprinkled with sifted soil in a layer of 0.5 cm. To reduce moisture evaporation, the box is shaded with burlap. The soil is watered regularly. After twenty days, shoots appear.

In the fall, the box is dug into the soil to the brim, and to protect the seedlings from bulging during the winter, they are covered with dry leaves in a layer of up to 10 cm. At the end of August - beginning of September, fertilizers are applied to the honeysuckle - 10 kg of humus or compost per square meter and 20-40 g superphosphate and potassium salt. All this is mixed with the top layer of soil by digging to a depth of no more than 10 cm (so as not to damage the roots). In September, honeysuckle is planted - an exceptionally frost-resistant crop.

It is cross pollinated. Therefore, at least two bushes are planted on the site. If the nursery sells vegetatively propagated selected forms, then you should purchase two or three different forms. Light, nutritious, well-drained soils are suitable for honeysuckle.

Over-wetted areas are not allowed. This culture is light-loving. They plant it in places fertilized with humus, dig holes 40 cm deep and wide. The size of a honeysuckle bush is often the same as that of a gooseberry, sometimes larger.

Therefore, when planting, it is enough to maintain a distance between bushes of 0.7-1.0 m, and for vigorous forms - 1.2-1.5 m. The planting hole is filled with fertile soil with the addition of one or two buckets of humus and 50 g of nitrophoska or superphosphate. When planting, the root collar is deepened to 3-4 cm, and the above-ground part is cut off at a height of 10-12 cm. Thanks to this, the bush grows well in the first year. Due to the fact that the roots of honeysuckle lie superficially, the tree trunk circle is well mulched when planting. The soil near the fruiting honeysuckle bushes is cultivated finely - 5-10 cm, and directly under the bushes - even finer.

Cooking recipes

Honeysuckle in sugar

For 1 kg of honeysuckle berries take 1 kg of sugar. Mash the berries with a pestle until smooth and then add sugar and mix everything. After this, the mixture is poured into jars and stored in the refrigerator.

How to propagate honeysuckle by seeds: 2 ways

I have been gardening for over forty years. I learned how to plant and grow grapes, as well as grow honeysuckle seedlings from seeds. Many people ask how to grow honeysuckle from cuttings. I do not grow honeysuckle from cuttings - using two methods, I recommend them.

The first method of propagating honeysuckle by seeds

I pick the ripest, tastiest and sweetest berries from the bush. I cultivate the soil in a sunny place, add humus or compost, level the soil, and water it well. When the water is absorbed, I make dimples in one row with my finger, the distance between them is 10 cm.

I crush one berry at a time and put it in the hole with my fingers, lightly sprinkling it with earth. I stick a stick the length of a pencil next to it: as many berries, as many sticks. I carefully water it, I can cover it with a piece of film and secure it with something so that it doesn’t blow away. It is important to ensure that the soil remains moist.

My shoots appear in 10-14 days, then I remove the cover, water, and weed. The shoots remain in bunches until winter. I cover the plantings with leaves, which I remove in the spring. In the spring I feed it with an infusion of manure or herbs. During the summer I weed and water it, and closer to autumn it is necessary to pick it up or leave it until spring. Read also: Growing honeysuckle: planting and care

Reproduction of honeysuckle - the second method

You can also grow honeysuckle with pure seeds. When picking berries, I choose ripe and large ones. I put it on a sheet of paper on the windowsill in the sun for about a week so that it doesn’t dry out completely. I take a mug of water and crush one berry in the water.

Then I beat it well with a fork so that the seeds separate. I let the water sit for about two minutes and drain the cloudy water. The grounds remain at the bottom, which I dilute with water a couple more times, and repeat all over again until clean seeds remain.

I take the seeds out with a spoon onto a clean sheet of paper, sign them and dry them. You can sow them both in spring and autumn. I take a box without a bottom 10-15 cm high, 30 cm wide, 60 cm long and place it in a sunny and elevated place so that rainwater does not stagnate. I prepare the soil: I take 2 parts humus, 2 parts earth, 1 part sand, 1 glass ash per 10 l. I mix it all well, pour it into a box, level it, leaving 2-3 cm of it short of the top.

I water it well. Using a rack along the width of the box, I press the rows 1 cm deep, and the distance between them is 8-10 cm. I lay out the honeysuckle seeds in a row every 2 cm, lightly sprinkle them with earth and water them. then I cover it with glass or film.

If with film, do not forget to secure it so that it does not blow away in the wind. Make sure that the soil is moist before germination. Shoots appear - we remove the shelter. For the winter, I cover the box with spruce branches or flower branches.

Honeysuckle is not afraid of frost, but mice can damage your plantings. In the spring, I open up annual seedlings: I cut off the necks of plastic bottles (1-2 liters) to make cups 20 cm high. I poke five holes in the bottom of the cup, and prepare the soil as for seedlings, and fill the container a little more than half. Having dug up the seedlings from the nursery, I make a hole in the cup with a spoon, straighten the root and cover it with earth, leaving 2-3 cm to the top. Now I dig the cups into the ground. This house for seedlings remains until spring, do not forget to cover it with coniferous paws from mice for the winter. From spring to mid-summer I feed it every ten days, alternating: 1st - with an infusion of herbs or manure, 2nd - a full complex of mineral fertilizers (1 tbsp. l. nitrophoska or other mineral fertilizers per 10 l of water), 3rd, - infusion of ash (1 glass per 10 l of water). At the age of two, I plant honeysuckle in a permanent place. I add humus into a 50x50 cm hole, a handful of superphosphate, potash fertilizer and ash.

I mix everything and plant. Before this, I put a glass of honeysuckle in a bucket of water, and it comes out easily. At the age of three you will have already tasted your harvest.

How to grow honeysuckle from seeds?

Ripe berries are placed in the refrigerator for 3-5 days. The box is filled with a substrate for sowing (a mixture of turf soil, humus and sand in equal volumes). Sowing furrows are made every 5 cm and the berries are placed in them.

Sprinkle the substrate on top with a layer of 1 cm, water it, cover it with film or glass and keep the box in a shaded place. The substrate is watered regularly, keeping it moist. 20-30 days after sowing, shoots appear (each berry produces 10 seedlings or more).

The boxes are carried into the light. The seedlings are watered and ventilated, gradually accustoming them to natural conditions. By autumn, 3-5 true leaves form on the plants. In late autumn, the box with seedlings is insulated with fallen leaves and then with snow.

In March, it is brought into a warm room, and the plants begin to grow. They are planted in peat-humus pots and grown until planted in open ground. After the end of spring frosts, the seedlings are planted in beds with fertile soil according to a 25 x 25 cm pattern and shaded.

In the fall, the seedlings are planted in a permanent place. In the conditions of an amateur garden, edible honeysuckle is easiest to propagate by simple vertical layering. To do this, you need to select the outer branches with good growth and hill them with loose, fertile soil.

Unlike horizontal layering, which is earthed up only after young shoots have grown from the buds, vertical layering in the spring must be earthed up as early as possible. For them to take root well, a loose substrate is very important, so it is advisable to have leaf soil or rotted sawdust.

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Description of the vine

In the wild, this vine grows in the Caucasus, Central and Southern Europe. The pleasant smell emitted by the flowers is simply fragrant in all directions. This delicate and fresh aroma only intensifies as the evening approaches.

Therefore, if you want to not only see a beautiful lush flowering decoration in your garden, but also feel a pleasant aroma, you definitely need to choose Honeysuckle Honeysuckle ( see photo).The flowers have an unusual sessile shape with far protruding stamens. All of them are collected in bunches of 5-6 pieces and located in the axils of fused leaves. Dense leathery and broadly elliptical leaves are dark green on top and bluish-gray on the inside.

This shade lasts until late autumn. Honeysuckle honeysuckle has a fairly short flowering period, which is only three weeks. The life of each flower lasts 3 days. Beautiful and fragrant flowers attract bees.

At the end of flowering, small bright red fruits appear on the leaves.

In one season, young shoots of vines can grow up to 2 m in length. Honeysuckle Honeysuckle is a frost-resistant plant. Even branches that have frozen over the winter have the ability to recover.

This perennial vine can live up to 50 years or more. Its reproduction is a rather simple process. One of the features of this plant is the presence of two-color leaves, bluish and green, which persist until late autumn.

How to care for honeysuckle

Honeysuckle Honeysuckle requires minimal care. A prerequisite for care is the construction of a support, or the plant is planted near a wall or any other vertical surface. This will allow the vine to direct its growth upward.

The higher the support, the higher the honeysuckle can grow. In garden culture, this plant reaches 4-5 meters in height. It gains this growth in the 5th year of life.

Look at the photo of this giant. The emerging young shoots can wrap around not only the support, but also attach themselves with small roots to the rough surface. This property facilitates the reproduction process. Therefore, the method of growing by cuttings is not at all appropriate here.

The plant is planted in the spring. To do this, take a sprout with several buds, which will give rise to young shoots in the future.

They will become the development of a new plant and will create a massive and tall-growing decoration. Since the vine does not take transplants very well, the young seedling is immediately planted in a permanent place.

Planting is done in well-loosened and moistened soil. After planting the plant, it is recommended to fertilize it after some time. Mineral and organic fertilizers, or a mixture of potassium, nitrogen and manure, are well suited for this.

This plant is very responsive to such feeding and will delight you with abundant flowering and active growth. For fertilizer, humus from 2-3 years ago is taken. You can also prepare peat compost mass made from plant waste found in your garden plot.

This is a pretty good fertilizer that can be added to the hole during planting. Such fertilizer will not harm the young plant in any way. Honeysuckle is planted both in a planting hole and in a planting trench.

If you need to cover a fairly large area, then it is better to plant honeysuckle honeysuckle in a planting trench. But before this, peat compost, organic and mineral substances that are mixed with the soil must be added. After this, the plant itself is planted.

At the end of the season, young shoots can already send out new shoots. You can watch the instructional video on how to properly grow Honeysuckle Honeysuckle at home.

How to propagate Honeysuckle Honeysuckle yourself

Honeysuckle propagation is carried out by several methods:

cuttings;

Propagation of honeysuckle by seeds

I propagated honeysuckle by seeds. They sprout in three to four weeks. But by this time, weeds have already appeared in the garden, which can drown out the seedlings, especially since at first they grow very slowly.

I got the best results from winter and early spring sowing in boxes under indoor conditions. I sow the seeds into nutritious soil of light mechanical composition preheated in the oven. I lay a thin layer of snow on the garden soil, and seeds on it.

I cover the box with glass or film. When the first shoots begin to appear, I remove the glass (or film), put the box in a well-lit place, on a windowsill, and water it moderately. With excessive watering, honeysuckle roots rot and seedlings die.

When the honeysuckle growing in open ground begins to vegetate, I take the box with the seedlings out into the garden and plant the whole lump of earth with the plants in the garden bed. Over the summer, the seedlings grow well. Next spring I'll pick them up. Most seedlings retain the advantages of their variety.

Some plants differ from the mother plant, and sometimes they produce very interesting fruits. When I want to completely preserve the characteristics of a variety, I propagate honeysuckle by cuttings. I cut semi-lignified cuttings in mid-June.

I immerse them with their lower ends 1-2 cm in a heteroauxin solution and leave them for a day. I set up a greenhouse with a height of no more than 15-20 cm. It has higher air humidity, so the cuttings take root better. I make sure that the greenhouse is protected from direct sunlight. It is enough if the cuttings are 7-10 cm long.

I bury them halfway into the soil. The soil in the greenhouse has a light mechanical composition and is rich in humus. By autumn, several young leaves may appear on the cuttings, and a surprisingly powerful root lobe is formed in the soil.

A year after rooting, the plants bear their first fruits. When propagated by seed, honeysuckle begins to bear fruit in the 3rd-4th year. I propagate plants by layering.

First, I make a circular cut in the bark of the branch down to the wood, bend it to the ground, pin it, and sprinkle it with good soil. This is in the spring, at the beginning of the growing season, and I separate the cuttings from the mother bush either in the fall or next spring.

Honeysuckle: assortment, reproduction and cultivation

author Vantenkov V.V., photo by the company “Gardens of Russia” Honeysuckle is a beautiful and productive, rather unpretentious fruit shrub for the garden. Along with such Far Eastern healing plants as lemongrass and actinidia, honeysuckle has become increasingly widespread in Russian gardens in recent years. Among the honeysuckle seedlings sold on the market, the most commonly found wild-growing honeysuckle is Kamchatka honeysuckle.

Like other wild plants, it is very difficult for it to take root after transplantation, especially since it is already a rather large bush. In this regard, purchased Kamchatka honeysuckle seedlings often die. In addition, this type of honeysuckle is quite capricious when grown in the garden, and its yield leaves much to be desired... Therefore, buy varietal honeysuckle seedlings only from reliable nurseries and companies. I will share with the readers of the Gardenia.ru website my experience in growing honeysuckle and the results of my own testing of different varieties this wonderful culture.

Tested varieties of edible honeysuckle

The selection of the most unpretentious and productive forms of honeysuckle has been going on for a long time, since the time of I.V. Michurin. With the advent of experimental stations, honeysuckle selection in Russia accelerated.

The newest varieties of honeysuckle developed by Russian scientists are the best in the world. Suitable varieties of honeysuckle can be selected for almost any area. Good adaptability, as well as the unique early fruitfulness and usefulness of this crop were appreciated by our gardeners in all climatic zones of the country. The fruits of garden honeysuckle of different varieties vary greatly in shape (from oval-elongated and pear-shaped to round) and color (from bluish-gray to almost black).

Its berries are very reminiscent of blueberries, but honeysuckle is larger, and its fruits are denser and more aromatic, with a pleasant dessert combination of sugars and acid. I will describe tested varieties of edible honeysuckle that have proven themselves well both in my garden and in a variety of regions. Honeysuckle varieties. A small compact plant up to 1.5 m high. It grows well on any soil, is quite drought-resistant and decorative. This is a bush form of honeysuckle with thin spreading branches.

The leaves are dark green, dense, 5-7 cm long. Flowering is very early, not afraid of significant frosts (up to -8 degrees). The berries are dark blue, sweet and sour, somewhat pear-shaped.

Productivity 3-4 kg per bush. Honeysuckle variety. It grows as a half-bush and half-tree, depending on the climate and soil. A variety that adapts very well to different conditions. The plant even lends itself to artistic pruning. The leaves are dark green and shiny.

The berries are dark blue with a bluish coating, the largest ones up to 1 g. The yield of an adult bush is 8-10 kg. The variety is drought-resistant, tolerates severe winter frosts (up to -10 degrees without snow) and returning spring frosts during the flowering period. Honeysuckle variety. One of the most beautiful varieties.

A spreading bush up to 2 m high, hemispherical, with strong and well-leafed shoots. The branches are literally covered with large dove-blue berries with a pleasant refreshing taste, resistant to shedding. Productivity up to 5 kg.

This is an unpretentious variety that tolerates drought and harsh winters well. Honeysuckle variety. Medium-sized bushes 1.5 m high with medium-sized green-bluish leaves. The elongated berries are medium-sized, sweet and sour when watered. Productivity is average.

The variety is shade-tolerant, frost- and drought-resistant. Honeysuckle variety. Adapts very well to the most unfavorable conditions. Half-bush, half-tree, it has medium-sized sweet and sour berries with very dense pulp, suitable for freezing. Productivity 3-4 kg.

The frost resistance of the variety is high.

Reproduction and cultivation of honeysuckle

Honeysuckle propagates by seeds and vegetatively - by layering and cuttings. Honeysuckle is easy to grow from full seeds from ripe berries. Their sowing depth is about 1cm.

When sowing in spring, honeysuckle seeds are pre-stratified for 1-2 months (at a temperature of 0...+3 degrees). After stratification, about 70-90% of the sown honeysuckle seeds germinate. Of unstratified seeds, honeysuckle shoots appear very slowly (after 4-5 weeks), and only a third of the sown seeds germinate.

In this case, at the same time as sowing peppers, I recommend sowing unstratified seeds of edible honeysuckle if there are a lot of seeds available and the recommended stratification dates have been missed. I advise you to take the land for sowing and growing seedlings from the area where it is planned to grow honeysuckle in the garden - so that seedlings from childhood They are used to this soil. It is desirable that the land for sowing honeysuckle seeds be light and fertile. I allocate a bright place in the house for keeping honeysuckle seedlings on the windowsill, without cold drafts.

At first, babies develop slowly, this is normal. I plant honeysuckle seedlings in separate cups at the age of 1.5-2 months.

Otherwise, when transplanting, older plants will have their rather thin branching roots damaged. Caring for honeysuckle seedlings is usual, as for any seedlings grown at home - regular watering, and careful loosening of the soil is allowed only at the very beginning. To prevent drying out, I cover the surface of the earth with tea.

Before planting honeysuckle seedlings in open ground, I harden them. Caring for honeysuckle is not difficult. Garden honeysuckle, although shade-tolerant, blooms and bears fruit more abundantly in open areas.

There is no need to get carried away with loosening the soil around the garden honeysuckle bush, because the bulk of the roots are located superficially. It is better to mulch the ground with humus or non-rhizome weeds. For mulching, honeysuckle cannot be used for sawdust of coniferous trees! I have never observed any cases of garden honeysuckle becoming infected with any diseases over many years - neither on my own plants, nor among gardeners I know.

Pollination and fruiting of honeysuckle

Edible honeysuckle begins to bear fruit regularly early, already at 3-4 years of age. Honeysuckle seedlings developing in favorable conditions increase their yield quite quickly.

Honeysuckle lives for a very long time, the bush regularly bears fruit in the garden for decades. Seedlings of different varieties of honeysuckle mutually pollinate each other, which dramatically increases the yield of each bush. Therefore, to obtain high yields in the garden, you need to have at least three varieties of honeysuckle for cross-pollination.

If the area of your garden is small, which does not allow you to plant several bushes, then agree with your neighbors about joint planting of honeysuckle. The distance between planted plants can reach 15-20 m, but the closer they grow, the better for cross-pollination of honeysuckle bushes.

The main insect pollinators of edible honeysuckle flowers, which are one of the first shrubs to bloom in the garden, are bumblebees, wasps and bees. The taste of edible honeysuckle fruits and their chemical composition are greatly influenced by many factors. The weather influences greatly - air temperature and precipitation during the ripening period.

In hot weather, honeysuckle berries accumulate more sugars. And cool weather with sufficient rain increases the overall acidity of the fruit, including the content of ascorbic acid. It is necessary to take into account: the amount of dry matter put into one harvest of garden honeysuckle berries is unchanged.

Therefore, if you give the plant extra watering, the mass of berries will simply increase, which will inevitably affect their taste. If there are only three honeysuckle bushes growing in your garden, and the need for berries is large, then I advise you to fertilize immediately after harvesting. Since mid-July I have been feeding honeysuckle 2-3 times.

It is better to feed fermented weeds. And during the period of setting honeysuckle berries, fertilizing with an infusion of wood ash (half a liter jar of ash per bucket of water) is very useful.

This will significantly improve the taste of honeysuckle berries and increase the content of useful microelements in them. Birds (especially blackbirds), which are very fond of its healthy berries, can cause great damage to the honeysuckle harvest. Therefore, ripening honeysuckle must be protected from birds.

About the healing properties of honeysuckle berries

The berries of garden honeysuckle have fully preserved all the beneficial properties of the fruits of its wild ancestors. The rich chemical composition of early-ripening honeysuckle berries (vitamins, acids, microelements) and the strength of their beneficial effect on the body makes this plant indispensable in the garden.

In terms of healing effects, the berries of edible honeysuckle are right behind ginseng, but the hassle of growing honeysuckle is much less! Honeysuckle berries, like the leafy cuttings of rhubarb that grow in the spring, are the earliest vitamin medicines and delicacies in the garden. Honeysuckle fruits ripen two weeks earlier than the first strawberries.

Therefore, honeysuckle berries are the very first and surest remedy for spring vitamin deficiencies and various kinds of body overload. But the most important therapeutic effect of garden honeysuckle fruits is anti-radiation.

For treatment, you just need to regularly eat fresh berries in such quantities as the body requires and tolerates. The fruits of edible honeysuckle have long been used in folk medicine for hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, malaria, etc. Honeysuckle berries are also used as a medicine for diabetes (type 2), obesity, hypertension and joint diseases. Both fresh and prepared honeysuckle berries (frozen, jam, juices, compote) bring many benefits to our body, besides, they taste good and are very refreshing. Grow unpretentious and productive varieties of honeysuckle in your garden, eat delicious and healthy berries for pleasure and benefit!

I have been gardening for over forty years.

I learned how to plant and grow grapes, as well as grow honeysuckle seedlings from seeds. Many people ask how to grow honeysuckle from cuttings. I don’t grow honeysuckle from cuttings - I grow honeysuckle with seeds using two methods, I recommend them.

The first method of propagating honeysuckle by seeds

I pick the ripest, tastiest and sweetest berries from the bush. I cultivate the soil in a sunny place, add humus or compost, level the soil, and water it well. When the water is absorbed, I make holes in one row with my finger, the distance between them is 10 cm. I crush one berry at a time and put it in the hole with my fingers, lightly sprinkling it with earth.

Nearby I stick a stick the length of a pencil: as many berries as there are sticks.

I carefully water it, I can cover it with a piece of film and secure it with something so that it doesn’t blow away. It is important to ensure that the soil remains moist. My shoots appear in 10-14 days, then I remove the cover, water, and weed.

The shoots appear in clusters and remain until winter. I cover the plantings with leaves, which I remove in the spring. In the spring I feed with infusion of manure or herbs.

During the summer I weed and water, and closer to autumn it is necessary to pick it up or leave it until spring.

Reproduction of honeysuckle - the second method

I take a mug of water and crush one berry in the water. Then beat well with a fork to separate the seeds.

I let the water stand for about two minutes and drain the cloudy water. The grounds remain at the bottom, which I dilute with water a couple more times and repeat all over again until clean seeds remain. I take the seeds out with a spoon onto a clean sheet of paper, label them and dry them.

You can sow in both spring and autumn. I take a box without a bottom 10-15 cm high, 30 cm wide, 60 cm long and place it in a sunny and elevated place so that rainwater does not stagnate.

I prepare the soil: I take 2 parts humus, 2 parts earth, 1 part sand, 1 glass of ash per 10 liters. I mix it all well, pour it into a box, level it, not adding 2-3 cm to the top. I water it well.

Using a rack along the width of the box, I press rows 1 cm deep, and between them there is a distance of 8-10 cm. I arrange honeysuckle seeds in a row every 2 cm, lightly sprinkle with earth and water, and. then I cover it with glass or film. If with film, do not forget to secure it so that it does not blow away in the wind.

Make sure the soil is moist before germination. Shoots appear - we remove the shelter. For the winter, I cover the box with spruce branches or flower branches. Honeysuckle is not afraid of frost, but mice can damage your plantings.

In the spring, I plant annual seedlings: I cut off the necks of plastic bottles (1-2 liters) to make cups 20 cm high.

I poke five holes in the bottom of the cup, prepare the soil as for seedlings, and fill the container a little more than half.

Having dug up the seedlings from the nursery, I make a hole in a glass with a spoon, straighten the root and cover it with soil, leaving 2-3 cm to the top.

Now I'm digging the cups into the ground. This house for seedlings remains until spring; do not forget to cover it with pine paws from mice for the winter.

From spring to mid-summer I feed every ten days, alternating: 1st - with an infusion of herbs or manure, 2nd - with a full complex of mineral fertilizers (1 tbsp. nitrophoska or other mineral fertilizers per 10 liters of water), 3rd, – infusion of ash (1 glass per 10 liters of water).

At the age of two I plant honeysuckle in a permanent place.

I add humus, a handful of superphosphate, potassium fertilizer and ash into a 50x50 cm hole. I mix everything and plant. Before this, I put a glass of honeysuckle in a bucket of water, and it comes out easily. At the age of three you will have already tasted your harvest.

honeysuckle loves water;
It is better to plant it in a sunny place;
In the winter, sprinkle the root with mulch so that the root system is not exposed.
So it’s not difficult to grow your own honeysuckle - you can buy berries at the market, take them from a neighbor or friends.

On a note:

Honeysuckle is famous not for its taste but for its beneficial properties. To treat skin diseases, use the juice of fresh berries or take baths with young twigs. To restore a healthy look to your hair, rinse it with honeysuckle infusion after washing.