Honeyberry
Lonicera caerulea
also called haskap, blue honeysuckle
The birds will be your main rival for the crop; otherwise this one gives very little trouble.
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Blue
- Sunlight
- Crops best in full sun, though it will put up with partial shade.
- Watering
- Keep the soil evenly moist, and mulch to hold that moisture in.
- Feeding
- A balanced feed in early spring, plus a compost mulch each year.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- In late winter, cut the oldest stems out at the base.
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Jun Fruit Set
- Jun–Oct Harvest
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 7 ft 10 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 6–8 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Honeyberry’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Blueberries, Currants, Comfrey
Green-leaved fruit, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com