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Honeysuckle woes

2 replies

wowfudge · 04/08/2014 13:07

Last year I planted a honeysuckle, Lonicera belgica, I think, against a fence in the garden. The garden faces east and the honeysuckle is in an area that gets partial sun for much of the day and full sun in the mid to late afternoon.

It is a poor, bedraggled specimen - very leggy with leaves at the ends of the branches which have grown higher than the 6ft fence and one shorter branch with a few leaves at the end of it. There was one flower last year and there has been nothing this year. It had what looked like powdery mildew in the spring, but seems to have recovered although some of the leaves died (I did treat it). Just doing a bit of research, I think I may have failed to water it enough, but I'm not sure that on its own is why it is so straggly.

So what do you think I can do to improve it, especially as it is clinging on to life? I thought I might cut it right back because it's all bare branch with tufts of leaves at the ends and give it a really good mulch with some horse manure fertiliser and see if it's any better next year. Is it in the wrong place and just not getting enough sun do you think or has my slapdash watering been to blame?

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Callmegeoff · 05/08/2014 08:46

Could you salvage a bit via a cutting in case cutting it back kills the plant?

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wowfudge · 05/08/2014 23:21

I could, but it feels like it's kill or cure time. It wasn't expensive.

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