The bees don’t need my Pollinator Habitat sign from the Xerces Society to find their way to Lonicera sempervirens. Its vibrant colors and champagne-flute flowers already put out the red carpet.
Listed as a plant of special value for bumblebees by the Native Plant Information Network, this tropical-looking vine, commonly known as trumpet or coral honeysuckle, also attracts hummingbirds. Its thick, winding foliage provides nesting sites for songbirds, and its autumn fruits feed finches, thrushes and robins. As if all that weren’t enough, the deep green leaves serve as a larval host for the spring azure butterfly and snowberry clearwing moth.
Though wildlife clearly value this plant, humans have been harder to persuade. Trumpet honeysuckle’s lack of use in landscaping has long been a mystery to me, given its many attributes for both animals and gardeners: It blooms prolifically as early as April here in Maryland and as late as November. Its leaves hang on so long it is practically evergreen in milder years. It’s a strong grower but not invasive. It’s not just low-maintenance but no maintenance at all.
Contrast that with the many flowers from far-flung lands that fill the shelves of big-box home improvement centers, and you may start to question the ability of our species to behave in a logical manner. Appreciating what we already have has never been our strong suit. Making more work for ourselves unnecessarily seems to be a common fatal flaw. I know because I used to do it. Looking back at photos from my early gardening years this week, I was struck by the intensity of the plantings—how much water, weeding, deadheading, fretting and fussing I did to keep alive wildflowers from other countries, rather than planting more of what would really thrive and feed the animals in my own backyard.
As many native plant enthusiasts know, the quest for something unusual and exotic—at the expense and neglect of so many things so close to home—is sadly ironic: Now many of the plants that truly belong here in our landscapes are rare and becoming rarer. This has a ripple effect on our native wildlife, who have co-evolved for millennia with local flora and often rely on specific native species for their survival.
A recent conversation at a party with a young man working his way into the sustainable agriculture industry highlighted how little our education system addresses these critical connections, even for those who actually pay money to learn about it. Expecting to have found an ally once I learned of his background as a plant science major, I told him of my endeavors in my own garden and the broader community. But he looked skeptical, asking in all earnestness whether I considered this little plot of land a “conservatory” rather than a necessary habitat in what I hope will become a long line of habitats in my neighborhood for permanent and migrating wild residents. And my new acquaintance already seemed defeated, saying we couldn’t possibly push back the inevitable force of supposed progress, resigning himself to believing that the best he can do is live simply and make wise choices in the marketplace.
An admirable goal, but those wise choices include proactively purchasing and planting trumpet honeysuckle instead of its nonnative, invasive cousins that rob our diminishing wildlife populations of their habitats. They include growing milkweed and Joe Pye weed and oak trees and Virginia creeper and allowing them to proliferate. And when nature begins taking over and ecosystems start coming back to life, they include leaving well enough alone.
I tried to discuss this with the defeated environmentalist, but he said he’d have to see my landscape first before he could really draw an opinion one way or the other. He said he likes things neat, automatically assuming that native gardens equal hoarders’ dens. He seemed to struggle with a dim view of the future: either continuing his path of trying to avoid a job in the segment of the landscaping industry dominated by mulch volcanoes and petunias and indifference or giving in to the chemical-laden path of least resistance toward the only place he saw any money to be made.
Whether he’ll ever see this blog post or not, I’ll probably never know. It was a chance and brief encounter that may not be repeated. But if we do meet again, I hope these photos of just one of our many “exotic” native plants will help him see that nature’s greatest wonders are often right outside our doors—if only we’d take the time to look.
Hi Nancy, I really enjoy your articles. Long ago I tried to grow native honeysuckle and it always had aphids and didn’t do well. Maybe it wasn’t planted in a good location. Yours is beautiful.
Thank you, Ellen! Yes, maybe it’s like my viburnums being in the wrong place. Also, I had an interesting phenomenon with native hibiscus. Years ago I planted it, and it did well the first year but was subsequently eaten to the ground by sawfly larvae every spring. Yet a friend who lived half an hour away in the same county never had this problem, and his hibiscus were six feet tall. Plus they are all over the Eastern Shore. So this year I decided to try one in a sandy spot. We’ll see!
I had native hibiscus magically appear by my back steps. The neighbor has it so I think a nice bird or animal planted it for me. Presents in the garden like that are so much fun. I hope your hibiscus does well in it’s new spot.
My Lonicera sempervirens has aphids in the early summer… and the leaves are temporarily stunted. I hang tight and wait for parasitic wasps to arrive. Within a moth or so the tiny wasps have laid eggs in the soft-bodied aphids, and the aphids turn into mummy shells… I actually enjoy the show. My honeysuckle looks great again by late summer… and I get to keep seeing hummers!
Cathy, you are my kind of gardener! It’s amazing how much nature will take care of things for us when we’re just a little bit patient. I’m glad you leave well enough alone, too.
Thank you for this great article! You’ve convinced me to make a go of this vine!
Steph, that’s great! I’m so happy. You won’t be disappointed! How long is your fenceline? I ask because that will determine how many pots you buy.
Oh I am so excited to find this article! I have a tiny cement yard in the bottom unit of a run down building across from the beach in San Francisco, and I try to be an avid gardener with what I have. There was a trellis in my yard with nothing on it when I moved in. I bought a coral honeysuckle at a native plant market with the promise of “ATTRACTS NATIVE BUTTERFLIES!!!” and boy did it! Baby butterflies, hungry, hungry, baby butterflies. It’s taken 8 years and me building a raised bed on top of the cement to get it big enough to cover the trellis. I want to know what I have because there is some kind of thing that nests in it and eats it every year and I let it, because that’s the whole idea, right? I sure hope it’s something good.
Hi Sarah! I think you have a number of honeysuckles there that are native to different parts of California – do you know which kind you have? As for who’s nibbling, do you mean it might be a caterpillar? Have you gotten pics? It’s so much fun to explore and try to figure it out! Sometimes I post pictures to places like iNaturalist if I can’t figure it out — and also there is a caterpillar identification group on Facebook that’s helpful. It sounds like you have a beautiful and vigorous vine now!
I am in lower Connecticut. Zone 7a.
I am extremely satisfied with the Trumpet Honeysuckle in my garden. This afternoon, a Hummingbird was having a feat. Also, many Bumblebees were trying to enter the mouth part of the flower. These are good size bees. My understanding is that as the bumble bees roll around pollin sticks to them and they transport it. The hummingbird penetrates with the needlelike beak and sucks nectar. Does it also, transport pollin. This palnt is about four years old, extremely hard, no maintenance except pruning!! came as a seedling from a Native plant nursery( a reputed nursery for authenticity),
correction:
Hummingbird was having a feast (not feat…sorry, typo!)
Jay B,
Thank you so very much. Great reply with wonderful information. I will check out the additional links also.
Cheers, Jay B.
Hi Jay! What a lovely sight in your garden. Yes, the hummingbird is also pollinating your trumpet honeysuckle when he’s visiting flowers for nectar (and likely eating some insects in the process too, since they need insects and there are lots of ants and other small creatures in there!). Here are a couple of more recent pieces I did on hummingbirds; there are 7,000 or so plants from Alaska to Patagonia that are pollinated by hummingbirds!
https://www.humanegardener.com/to-feed-or-not-to-feed-hummingbirds/
https://www.humanegardener.com/10-favorite-plants-for-hummingbirds/
I’ve seen smaller bees, like sweat bees, able to get to the flower parts of our coral/trumpet honeysuckle vines. But when I see bumblebees, they are always going to the top of the flower instead and getting nectar through a hole in the corolla. That’s called “nectar-robbing” because they’re unable to pollinate the plant. A long time ago I wrote a short piece about that, too, though this year I’ve seen it more than ever — tons of bees doing this at once on the honeysuckle:
https://www.humanegardener.com/from-nectar-robbers-to-border-police/
Always something interesting to see! 🙂
I’ve got black bees that hang out at my honeysuckle plant. I’ve never seen black bees. Do you know anything about these bees?