Big Honeysuckle Progress

Our warm winter is causing my honeysuckle to bud out. Despite our devilish summer last year, it has made some development progress.



And yes that is a face on the deadwood; evidence that this honeysuckle was originally created by my teacher, Nick Lenz.

That's an incredible Honeysuckle, man I love that thing. What would you guess the age is?

Thanks. I'm afraid I have no idea how old it is. Given the 16" root base, it's likely quite old, but it was collected from the wild in the N.E. US. Here's a photo from this time last year:

wow!! thats a trunk

best wishes, sam

I love this tree its beautiful. Love to see some flowers. Does it normally bud early now that its home is in texas? Did it bud alot later when it was first brought from the N.E.?

Neil

Very nice tree.

Anyone else noticed the face? I think you collected an ENT!!!

yeah, i noticed the face too. wasn't sure whether it was intentional or not. a bonsai-sized ent... now that's a funny thought.

Andy,
That's a lovely tree; nicest honeysuckle I have ever seen. How do you treat the deadwood?
I had a large one once and then sold it. I found them to be easy to grow and very forgiving. I'm keeping an I out for a large vine to train
Best,
Todd

Looking good Andy. Have you had a mild winter in the DFW area?

That's a nice tree - love the trunk. The only thing I'm not sure I like is the symmetry at the top, the two apical branches seem too similar.

Do you know what species it is?

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Thanks all.

@Neil
Thanks, the flowers are quite small, but very pretty in late spring. It's budding early here because of the temps.

@Rob
We've had a very mild winter. In fact today is the first time we've gotten below 30F this winter. So given our 70sF lately it has gone ahead and budded out. Elms are coming out, too.

@Todd
Thank you. Nicest one I've seen, too, thanks to good ol' Nick. :) Deadwood is treated just as any other, but with more ink added to the mix.

@coh
Thanks. And I agree about the symmetrical branching at the top. The hollow branches make bending dicey and once they get to that size, little can be done. I'm trying to avoid chopping it all back and starting over. In time I should be able to mask the symmetry with the secondary and tertiary structure. Time will tell.

Kind Regards,
Andy

Andy,

I have four acres a woodlands that are littered with literally hundreds of honey suckle (maacki variety). Many of which would be strikingly similar in appearance to yours. Very impressive. I've been searching the net for everything I can learn about them. I will be collecting several in a couple of weeks. Some are leafing out in the sunnier areas, the rest are still dormant.

Do you know what species yours is? Are the leaf tips pointed? Any idea how much rootage was taken when collected? I understand that they can be collected much the same as a willow or olive, i.e., little to no rootage is necessary.

That would make lifting many of the monsters around here easy.

I have many that have massive interesting trunks that I really would like to lift but it would be really hard if I need to take a large root ball. Any thoughts?.

I have no experience with Honeysuckles, but I also have a yard full of them and I'm planning on collecting one this spring. I'm glad people are posting info on them on this thread, but I'm wondering how they take to shoot pruning. I tried cutting back some of the new growth this winter to east collection, but I ended up with dead hollow stems. All I can see is that they put out lots of suckers, but I don't know if they'll behave like a maple or elm by putting buds on the areas they were cut.

T

Andy, nice to see you are finally on air again. Nice tree....