cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/24076439
This is the entrance to the “wild” part of our garden. I’m lucky to have access to woodland close by that the council haven’t maintained, so there were lots of branches from past storms this winter. The plan is to grow honeysuckle either side and hope it covers most of it, providing food and shelter along with the hedgerow I’ve planted on the left behind the ladder. The pond I posted earlier last year is made out of an old water tank someone was throwing out.
A two part reminder to be mindful of which type of honeysuckle you plant: Japanese honeysuckle is very popular, but also considered invasive in some areas and grows very aggressively. But also, not all honeysuckle is Japanese, you may have native varieties available that will work even better.
My local native honeysuckle unfortunately isn’t fragrant, but the hummingbirds love it.
Imagine my surprise when I learned the honeysuckle I grew up with was invasive BUT the native honeysuckle I. The mid Atlantic is a dope ass tropical looking vine with big red / orange flowers.
I thought the white stuff was native and the exotic looking ones invasive, exactly the opposite!
Your comment helped me remember that I had a dream hummingbirds were visiting my coral honeysuckle!
I just realized I had a similar misunderstanding about trumpet creeper and crossvine. Turns out both are native, but trumpet creeper just grows way too aggressively. This is a good thing for professional landscapers that can keep up with training and pruning it, but most people would probably do better with a well behaved crossvine.
Honeysuckle? Lame. Depending on your location plant something that’ll blow people’s minds like pumpkin!
Yes: If you train your pumpkin vine up the arbor it’ll grow pumpkins in the air and the vine will remain strong enough to support the heavy fruit! Though, that arbor might not be up to the weight requirement 😁
Another great option is kiwi. It requires cold weather though (does it snow in your area? Perfect).
If you want to demonstrate just how ambitious/crazy you are grow horned melons! They prefer warmer/tropical climates but man are they a cool thing to grow. You’ll have alien brains ready to eat in no time!
Disclaimer: Don’t touch horned melon vines with your bare hands! They have little velcro-sized spines that will stick into your skin and be annoying/slightly itchy for like two weeks (ask me how I know 🤣). They’re not dangerous but they’re annoying enough to keep certain pests far, far away from your yard (e.g. rats).
Another great option is kiwi. It requires cold weather though (does it snow in your area? Perfect).
Wait, what?!
Kiwi plants grow best in USDA zones 4 to 9, with fuzzy kiwi varieties preferring zones 8 to 9 and hardy kiwis thriving in zones 4 to 7.
TIL that there’s two kind of kiwi. I wonder how good the hardy ones are relative to fuzzy. This could be a fun experiment.
Huh, I’ve had the exact thing you describe from handling pumpkin vines before (which were incidently grown on a wire floating in the air)
Other suggestions for OP to possibly grow; grape vine, passion fruit, kiwi berry.
Ipomoea flowers as well!
My wife would approve as the other half is raised beds and decretive flowers, we’re UK so get about 2 months of decent cold snap
