This Years Honeysuckle

Hello everyone, been a long time since i posted here. I however have not been a stranger, i regularly check in to view everyones amazing work.

Well some of you may remember the honeysuckle I saved from a neighbor last year. The honeysuckle is doing well and is starting to develope its spring buds.

last years honeysuckle


This is the second honeysuckle yamadori i have added to my collection. This one is from my own yard and was planted by a previous owner. I pruned it heavy and trenched the roots last year. a few weeks ago i finished the dig and it went into a pot. It is now just begining to show spring buds.

Future plans are for a broom style i beleive.



Please excuse the messy yard. Just got a new puppy and between her and my 3 year old i cant keep the yard clean lol.

any comments/suggestions appreciated.

I was also interested if anyone has experiance with Honeysuckle, and some tips on training techniques. Am i looking at clip and grow, or do they take well to wire?

any advice would be appreciated,I dont have a teacher or even a club in my area to help me. There is one about an hour drive away but ATM im not able to attend. Everything i have learned about bonsai i learned from forums like these and books.

Lovely material. Let it establish for a year with lots of feeding and cutting back of long growths at the end of the season. Next year, you can start to make design decisions.

So should i let growth just go wild this growing season then chop back hard in fall, or should i chop back new growth as it gets to long?

I dont have much experiance with yamadori material other than ponderosa pine to be honest.

I would let your Honeysuckle grow freely for the year to establish a good root system. Honeysuckle withstand being hard pruned anyway,so a free reign won't do any harm.

forgot to mention this is Lonicera tatarica incase anyone is wondering.

I collected a couple of honeysuckles awhile ago; I think it was 2004 or 2005. I sold one, but kept this little tree. I wish I had some older photos of the tree, but here is the development since 2007.



In 2008 I removed the first branch. It exited the trunk right in the front, then went left before it curved right. It always bothered me, so I removed it. By letting the tree grow alot I'm getting a new key branch coming down from higher in the tree. From a styling standpoint, honeysuckles are kind of liberating since there's no real native "tree" style to the plant.

I've found them to be plenty tough. The growth pattern can frustrate. I've found it better to let them grow vigorously, then cut back hard. In addition to quicker development, it helps to get the live vein to swell away from the deadwood. Even with leaf reduction, I much prefer the winter silhouette of this tree and its summer look. They take wire well, but can grow quickly, so be careful with scarring. Nick Lenz had a lot to say about them in his book 'Bonsai from the Wild.'