Honeysuckle Days

A Seasonal Celebration of the Land, Garden & Nature

Long Warm Days, Lavender, Grasshoppers, Thunderstorms, Herbs, Holidays, Tennis, Darkening Greens, Butterflies & Breezes 

Issue 22 July 2020

Honeysuckle 

Twining, scented woodland stunner.

The UK's wild, native honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) is in flower now, adding perfume to our hedgerows and woodlands. Its fantastically fragrant, trumpet shaped flowers give off a honey scent that permeates the summer air. The fragrance is at its strongest in the evening and for me it's one of the defining scents of summer.  

 

"The people in the lane below look up and see me there,

Where I my honey-trumpets blow, whose sweetness fills the air.

O Honeysuckle, waving there! O Woodbine, scenting all the air!"

The Song of The Honeysuckle Fairy 

- Cicely Mary Barker

 

 

Honeysuckle uses twining stems to help it weave through shrubs and trees - always in a clockwise direction. It flowers from June right through to September then has red berries that ripen in in the Autumn.

Although well known as a garden climber grown  in romantic garden bowers or trained around cottage doorways, honeysuckle is in fact a woodland plant. This makes it really useful to grow in a shady spot in your garden where it will still flower - a good bet for a North or East facing wall. 

Look out for Lonicera periclymenum 'Scentsation' which is claimed to be the most scented variety.

WILDNESS

As well as being a garden favourite, honeysuckle is hugely valuable to wildlife - so much so that The Wildlife Trust refer to it as a 'wildlife hotel!' The heady evening fragrance attracts pollinating moths (moths love night scented, pale-flowered plants) with the flowers providing them a source of nectar. Birds eat the red berries and dormice use the bark to build their nests. Wild honeysuckle is also the primary food plant for the caterpillar of the rare White Admiral butterfly and bumblebees love it!

NOURISH

You can get a sugary hit from honeysuckle nectar and many a child has tried sucking the ends of the edible flowers to discover the honey taste. You only need a few flowers to capture the flavour. Try making honeysuckle infused water for teas, sorbets, cordials and conserves and/or honeysuckle syrup to add to jellies,  cocktails, gin, champagne and chilled fizzy water. Remember not to eat the berries!

There are over 180 varieties of honeysuckle, some are climbers, some shrubs, there are Japanese varieties, evergreen and deciduous types and some are toxic. The flowers of only a few species are edible, including our UK native common honeysuckle, or woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum). Always use good plant identification books to identify your finds and be 100% certain before eating them.

RESTORE

Although the berries are poisonous to us, over the years the leaves, flowers and seeds have been used to treat a variety of conditions - as a cure for asthma, bronchitis, croup, headaches, cramps and convulsions. What we do know today is that the flowers are rich in salicylic acid (a natural painkiller found in modern Aspirin) as well as being anti-spasmodic and expectorant - so there may be sense in its use to treat some of these conditions. 

Jo Dunbar of Botanica Medica Herbal Apothecary, suggests making a Honeysuckle Cough Syrup using honeysuckle flowers collected in the evening when they are open. Submerge the flowers in a jar of runny honey until the jar is full. Then after 4 days, strain the honey and repeat the process 3 times. Take a teaspoon as required.

ROOTS

Folklore claims growing honeysuckle (or woodbine as it was commonly known) around a door brings good luck to a home, stopping evil spirits from entering. However brought into the house, honeysuckle was considered unlucky bringing a list of maladies from sore throats to erotic dreams to failed hay crops!

Elizabethans saw it as a symbol of sweet love and in Victorian times it was a sign of fidelity.

See if you can spot honeysuckle when you are out and about this month.  I'll be back with more July highlights over the coming weeks but in the meantime I'd love to hear what you spot and/or photograph.

If you have any questions you can reach me via my website www.plotgardendesign.co.uk and please follow/like PLOT Garden Design on social media to receive my seasonal updates and photos.

Keep well, breathe and remember to look outside and notice the details.