How do I adjust my Honeysuckle?

Hello to all.



Hopefully the picture of my honeysuckle will show you that the lower to mid areas of the plant are sparse. I basically got the plants to grow upwards and then out in order to give us some privacy from the neighbours. Now I have the top of the fence nicely covered I was wondering if anyone could give me advice that would allow the fence panels to be covered up nicely. I’m basically after a wall of honeysuckle along the fence line.

Cheers

Chalky

 

No expert me, but in my experience it looks to be just doing what (an older) honeysuckle does - climbing, putting on lots of top growth and leaving behind some bare stems.

For this year, you could take some of the more 'whippy' growth and gently bend it downwards to encourage it to cover the bare parts of the fence.

In the longer term, you could just prune the whole thing down to a few inches above ground and start again, but that way you'd risk not having any flowers the following year. Rather than that, I'd suggest you prune back some of the stems to within a few inches of the ground every year, as new shoots grow from below that cut they will give you young growth further down the plant, which you can then train along to cover the bare fence.

 

Thanks for that I'll give the latter idea a go, would break my heart to cut it all away.

 

Thanks for both loads of advice. Mixing the species up is an interesting idea I think I will research the idea.

Thanks