By planting edible honeysuckle varieties, you will decorate your plot with decorative and productive shrubs. Each bush of honeysuckle, without requiring special care, will give you tasty and healing fruits every year. Learn how to plant honeysuckle correctly, and how to care for it?
Choosing and buying a variety
Honeysuckle bushes can grow up to 3 m in height. They are dense and make excellent hedges. For this purpose, it is more profitable to buy tall varieties, but sometimes it is more profitable to grow low-growing honeysuckle.
When buying edible honeysuckle seedlings, specify the details about the variety:
- yield;
- ripening terms.
It is not easy to figure out the varieties of honeysuckle on your own, so when buying seedlings it is worth consulting the seller in the nursery. It is better to buy seedlings in the same place, this increases the likelihood of acquiring the desired variety and quality seedlings.
Requirements for a healthy seedling
The rules for choosing seedlings:
- Two-year-old seedlings are used for planting.
- The seedling should have 2-3 branches.
- The optimal height is 30-40 cm.
- The branches should not be damaged. They must be fresh, not dry.
- If the seedlings have peeling of the bark, this is a normal phenomenon for honeysuckle.
- The roots must be healthy, the branches have buds.
Honeysuckle is a self-fertile culture, in order to bear fruit, it needs pollinating varieties for cross-pollination. When buying seedlings, you need to choose several varieties of honeysuckle at once - for pollination.
What is edible honeysuckle?
Of the two hundred species of honeysuckle in Russia, about fifty grow, and most of them are inedible. Each region has its own varieties. Especially carefully you should choose honeysuckle for Siberia and the northern regions - taking into account frost resistance.
Among edible honeysuckle, separate groups of varieties are distinguished - early, mid-season, late, large-fruited, sweet, decorative, resistant to shedding.
Criteria for choosing a variety of edible honeysuckle:
- Regionality. When choosing a variety, the lowest winter temperatures and frost resistance of a particular variety are compared. Preference is given to zoned varieties.
- The form. If the color of the fruits of edible honeysuckle is about the same, and lies in a blue-violet range, then their shape can be very diverse:
- oval;
- rounded oval;
- cylindrical;
- fusiform;
- elongated;
- truncated
- Colour. In poisonous honeysuckle, fruits are usually yellow, orange or red, while in edible honeysuckle, the berries are only blue or purple, sometimes almost black. The fruits are covered with a whitish-gray bloom.
- Fruit size. The maximum fruit size is 2 cm, the maximum length is 8 mm. Such parameters of berries are typical for large-fruited varieties. The weight of small fruits - up to 0.5 g, large - up to 1.5 g.
- Fruit taste. Berries of different varieties differ in taste, they are sweet, sweet and sour, with bitterness, without bitterness, and there are also varieties with unusual taste shades.
- Productivity. The minimum yield is 0.5 kg per bush, the maximum is 4 kg.
If the site is small, or the functions of the fence will be assigned to the honeysuckle, then, when choosing a variety, the shape and size of the bush are taken into account.
Honeysuckle varieties edible for the regions of Russia:
Region | Recommended varieties |
Ural | Zest, Sorceress, Blueberry, Blueberry |
Leningrad region | Lenarola, Volkhova, Malvina, Julia |
Middle lane and Moscow region | Moskovskaya, Kucha Mala |
Primorye | Dawn, Zarnitsa, Blueberry |
Siberia | The pride of Bakchar, Gerda, Cinderella, Siberian woman |
Among all the edible honeysuckle, the most appreciated varieties are high-yielding, with large berries - for example, the honeysuckle Veliga, Morena, Laura, Slavyanka, Violet.
The best varieties with description and characteristics
Breeders are constantly improving the characteristics of honeysuckle, so today gardeners from all regions can choose varieties that best meet their needs.
Top varieties of edible honeysuckle:
Variety | Yield | Fruit | Other features |
Vasyugan | up to 5 kg | Weight - up to 1 g. Sweet and sour, without bitterness. Dark blue, waxy bloom. The shape is jug-shaped, the tops are flat. | It is half tree, half bush. Very high frost resistance. Average crumbling. Fast ripening of fruits. High transportability. |
Zarnitsa | about 2 kg | Weight - 1 g, Sour-sweet, slightly astringent. Fusiform. Dark blue. | Very decorative bushes, spreading, hemispherical. Resistant to drought and frost. Fruits hardly crumble. |
Ivushka | up to 3.5 kg | Weight - 0.75 g, Dark blue fruits, sourish in taste. Form - fusiform. The berries are lumpy, dark blue. | Sprawling, low spherical bushes. High content of vitamin C. The variety is fast-growing and fruitful. |
Pavlovskaya | about 2 kg | Weight - 1.3 g. Dark blue, sweet and sour. The shape is elongated, the tops are pointed. | Bushes are inversely conical in shape. Height - up to 1.7 m. High winter hardiness. |
Nymph | up to 3 kg | Weight - 1 g. Bluish-blue, fusiform. Large, elongated, lumpy surface. Sweet, with a pleasant aroma. | New. The best honeysuckle variety for today. Bushes are round, 1.5 m high. High frost resistance. |
Moraine | up to 2.5 kg | Weight - 1.7 g. Blue-blue, with a waxy bloom. Sweet and sour, without bitterness, with a weak aroma. The shape is jug-shaped. | The variety is very decorative. Early ripe. The height of the bush is 1.7 m. |
The benefits and harms of honeysuckle
Honeysuckle berries taste like blueberries, blueberries, and some varieties have notes of pineapple in the taste. Fruits have a lot of useful properties:
- strengthen the immune system;
- stabilize pressure;
- lower the acidity of the stomach;
- have antipyretic properties;
- heal stomach and intestinal ulcers;
- remove toxins and toxins from the body;
- have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects;
- strengthens blood vessels;
- improve blood circulation.
Use honeysuckle in moderation. It cannot be eaten in large quantities - fruits and flowers can provoke an allergic attack. Blooming honeysuckle can also trigger allergy sufferers. Berries should not be eaten by children under 5 years old.
The following video explains the benefits of eating honeysuckle:
Landing features and step-by-step instructions
In planting honeysuckle, the main thing is high-quality planting material and proper preparation of the pit. If everything is done correctly, then there will be no problems with the survival of the seedlings.
Disembarkation dates
Honeysuckle is planted in spring or fall. Preference is given to autumn planting. Recommended disembarkation dates are from mid-September to mid-October. Planting should be very early in the spring, as honeysuckle buds early.
Seat selection
Optimal conditions for honeysuckle:
- wind protection;
- occurrence of groundwater - no more than 1.5 m to the surface of the earth;
- soils - neutral, sandy or loamy, well moistened;
- good illumination for the crown and shading for the roots.
Unlike most crops, honeysuckle grows well in lowlands. It perfectly coexists with the plantings of other shrubs and trees. When planting honeysuckle, it is important to provide for a comfortable berry picking - there must be access to all sides of the bush.
Honeysuckle can even grow on swampy soils, as long as they are not overly acidic.
Soil preparation
The soil is dug onto the bayonet of a shovel, removing the roots of the weeds. If necessary, deacidify the soil, adding 400 g of slaked lime per 1 sq. m. The plot is fertilized so that the honeysuckle seedlings take root faster and gain strength for fruiting. Under the digging, for each square meter, make:
- superphosphate - 30 g;
- potassium salt - 30 g;
- humus - 10 kg.
Fresh manure is applied only in autumn. In the spring, the soil is fertilized with humus or rotted plant compost.
Preparing pits
Features of the preparation of holes for planting honeysuckle:
- pits are prepared about half a month before disembarkation;
- the depth of the holes is 40 cm;
- soil mixture is introduced into the dug holes;
- the pit is covered with a non-woven fabric.
The composition of the soil mixture for introduction into the planting pit:
- fertile layer;
- humus - 3 kg;
- ash - 200 ml;
- nitrophos - 30-40 g;
- slaked lime - 250 ml (the solution is prepared from 250 ml of lime and 10 l of water).
The minimum period for planting honeysuckle in prepared pits is 4 days after fertilization.
Landing
Honeysuckle seedlings are planted according to the scheme - 1.5 m between adjacent bushes, and 2 m between rows. If the seedling has open roots, then they are dipped in a clay mash (1 liter of clay per 10 liters of water) before planting.
Honeysuckle planting order:
- From fertilizers poured into the hole, a hill is formed.
- The roots of the seedling are placed on the top of the hill, their bending is not allowed.
- The roots are covered with soil, gently rammed so that all the voids are filled.
- The seedling is watered abundantly with water.
- The trunk circle is mulched with peat, hay, sawdust, bark.
See in the video presented the order of planting edible honeysuckle:
The honeysuckle seedling is positioned so that the root collar is buried 5 cm into the soil.
How does it bloom?
Honeysuckle is a versatile plant, one of its main functions is decorative. The shrub is especially beautiful during the flowering period. Moreover, it does not last for several days, as in many fruit crops, but for 3-4 weeks.
Flowering begins 3 or 4 years after planting the seedlings. The flowering time depends on the ripening time of the variety. Honeysuckle flowers are large, their color, depending on the variety, can be white, pink, blue.
Plant care
The first fruits on the honeysuckle will appear 2 years after planting. At first, the harvest will be small - about 300 g of berries. But if you provide the plant with proper care, there will be more and more fruits every year. With good maintenance, honeysuckle bears fruit for 30 years.
Top dressing
The procedure for feeding honeysuckle:
- Before bud break, make 1 sq. m ammonium nitrate - 15 g. Or urea solution - 1 tbsp. l per 10 l of water. A bucket of urea solution - for 1 bush.
- During flowering, a strengthening ash solution is added under the root. For a bucket of water - 1 kg of ash.
- After picking the berries, add a solution of nitrophoska - 25 g per 10 l, or slurry (1: 4).
- In autumn, 5 kg of compost are applied under each bush, 50 g of superphosphate and 100 g of ash.
For more information on how to care for honeysuckle during the fall, check out this article.
Watering
Honeysuckle is unpretentious and does not require special watering. It tolerates drought well, it has to be watered only in the most prolonged droughts. And if it is still watered, then it is very abundant. Young bushes, unlike adults, are watered regularly.
The rate of watering young bushes is 1-2 buckets. After watering, the soil is sprinkled with peat, humus or sawdust. If the trunks are weeded, then very carefully - the roots of the honeysuckle are located very close to the surface of the earth.
Formation of bushes
To improve fruiting and increase the decorative effect of the bush, formative pruning is carried out. Features of the formation of bushes:
- The first pruning is done immediately after planting. The seedling is cut, leaving 3-5 of the strongest branches. Each of the left branches is shortened by a third.
- Sanitary pruning is carried out annually in spring - damaged and dry shoots are cut off. Pruning is carried out no later than March.
- Formative pruning is carried out in the fall, after the leaves fall. Thickening branches are cut off, but one-year-old shoots are not touched.
- Until the age of 7, honeysuckle grows many new shoots, some of which are cut out.
- At 10-12 years old, they carry out anti-aging pruning. Branches 5-6 years old are removed.
For honeysuckle, radical pruning is applicable - the old bush is pruned at the root. In a few years, the plant will recover and bear fruit.
Reproduction of edible honeysuckle
Honeysuckle is propagated in different ways. This hardy culture reproduces without problems by cuttings, layering and other methods.
Green cuttings
Cuttings are cut from decaying plants when green fruits appear. Cutting is carried out in cloudy and cool weather. Breeding order:
- Using a sharp knife, cut the shoots obliquely.
- Then young shoots are divided into several cuttings, each should have 2-3 buds.
- Tear off the lower leaves. The upper ones are shortened. For 24 hours, the cuttings are placed in water. They are planted in the ground and insulated for the winter. In the spring, the strongest seedlings are planted in a permanent place.
Lignified cuttings
Planting material is harvested after the foliage has fallen off. Breeding order:
- Cut branches 7-8 mm in diameter.
- Wrap the roots with a damp cloth and drop them in the sand.
- In the spring, lignified branches are cut into cuttings and planted using the same technology as green ones. By the fall, they will have their own root system. After another year, they can be transplanted to a permanent place.
Horizontal layering
In early spring, the branches of the lower tier are pressed to the ground and fixed with staples. By the fall, the layers will have roots. Layers are separated from the mother bush next spring. The separated cuttings are planted in a permanent place.
To stimulate the formation of roots in the cuttings, incisions are made in the bark at the point of contact of the shoot with the soil.
By dividing the bush
The division is propagated by adults, but not old bushes, which have 6-7 skeletal branches buried in the ground. A prerequisite is that the bush must be healthy.
In autumn, the bush is removed from the ground and divided into several parts with a pruner. Each part should have several shoots and a sufficient number of roots. They are immediately transplanted into prepared pits.
Root layers
Honeysuckle gives few root suckers. In order for a root cut to appear, adventitious buds must wake up on the roots, which will sprout into the aerial shoot. Ingrown offspring are grown at the mother bush. Two years later, having separated the grown layers from the mother bush, they are transplanted to a permanent place.
Transfer
Honeysuckle can be transplanted if necessary. To do this, in advance - as for landing, prepare a landing pit. In this case, the size of the root system of the transplanted plant is taken into account. If the bush is large, it is divided into parts with a sharp shovel - the resulting plants are planted in the same way as ordinary seedlings.
Diseases and the fight against them
Honeysuckle does not create problems for its owners. This culture is highly immune to disease, and rarely gets sick. Especially if you carry out preventive spraying.
In damp and cold years, honeysuckle can be affected by the following diseases:
- White spot. It is accompanied by the appearance of gray-brown spots on the leaves with a white center. Fundazol helps to get rid of the disease.
- Powdery mildew. Fungal disease, accompanied by the appearance of gray spots on the leaves, and then on the entire plant. To prevent powdery mildew, the plant is treated twice with Bordeaux liquid - in early spring and after flowering.
To cope with fungal infections, honeysuckle is sprayed with Folicur, Topaz and other fungicides. Processing is carried out before the appearance of ovaries or after harvesting the fruits.
Spraying with a solution of copper sulfate and laundry soap has a good prophylactic effect. Put 10 g of vitriol and 1 tbsp on a bucket of water. l. grated soap.
Pests and prevention
Honeysuckle is pest resistant, but there are pests that can attack the crop. The most common enemies of honeysuckle are:
- Spider mite. The parasite sucks the juices from the leaves - they curl, turn brown, become full of holes. Thinning of shoots helps to prevent invasion. They are processed by Mauritius, Omite, Tedion.
- Shield. The pest sucks the juices from the green parts of the plant. As a result, the bush dies.For treatment and prevention, the culture, after harvesting, is sprayed with Rogor.
- Caterpillars. These pests can be manually removed from the bushes. If there are a lot of caterpillars, the bushes are sprayed with Inta-Vir or Eleksar.
- Aphid. This insect especially loves honeysuckle, overfed with nitrogen. Leaves turn yellow and fall off. Spraying with Aktellik, Konfidor, Rogor helps.
We recommend that you read the article about diseases and pests of honeysuckle.
Harvesting
Blue fruits do not mean that it is time to harvest - you need to wait a week, no less. And if the variety is not shattered, then you can wait longer - then the berries will be sweeter.
What else you need to know about collecting and storing honeysuckle fruits:
- The easiest way to harvest honeysuckle is to shake it off. This option is suitable for crumbling varieties. The berries are shaken off onto a film placed under the bush. The second option is manual collection
- When ripening, the fruits become soft. In order not to crush the fruits, they are placed in a shallow container in a thin layer.
- Honeysuckle is not stored for a long time, even in the refrigerator the berries quickly deteriorate. The berries must be processed or eaten within 2-3 days.
Agrotechnics of edible honeysuckle is within the power of the laziest gardener. Growing this unique plant is not difficult at all. Having planted it on the site, you can collect several kilograms of valuable fruits annually, and at the same time decorate your site with ornamental shrubs.
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Russia. City Novosibirsk
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