Bush honeysuckle offends me.
To begin, it’s invasive. It outcompetes our native plants, offering inferior services to the bugs and birds who depend on our indigenous shrubs for food and cover. The red berries it produces in the fall, for instance, are far less nutritious for birds than those of native shrubs.
There are several species of nonnative bush honeysuckle, all of them invasive, in the United States. The one that seems to be most prevalent in our area is Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii).
Bush honeysuckle also offends me because it is so “meh” in ornamental terms and yet is everywhere, filling up our woods, yards, and even the spaces next to the Metro tracks with mediocrity we didn’t ask for.
Yes, the white flowers this multi-stemmed shrub produces in spring are pretty in a modest way, but then they’re gone.
The green leaves are undistinguished except that they last for a LONG time, emerging ahead of nearly every other tree or shrub in spring and then hanging on into late fall and beyond. When bush honeysuckle finally loses its leaves, its naked greige stems block the strong spare lines of trees in the winter landscape.
Bush honeysuckle’s unassuming leaves, in fact, are its superpower, enabling it to generate extra stores of chlorophyll to power its growth.
In fact, its appearance is so unassuming that you may not notice at first that it’s steadily buttressing its position in your yard, growing its stems ever thicker and sending out new shoots to claim more territory.
By the time you recognize this plant has got to go, it may be hard to get rid of it. Young plants with thin stems can be pulled out by hand while thicker stems can be pulled with the help of a Weed Wrench. In some cases, though, you may need to saw the stems to the ground and paint them with full strength herbicide to keep them from resprouting.
Remain vigilant!
–Meg Voorhes
Photo credits: Feature photo and top photo by Tim Rahn, next two photos by Meg Voorhes, and final photo by David Hauck
Friends of Native Trees in Takoma 