Honeysuckle, like roses and jasmine, is a plant that will weave romance into a garden. Perhaps it is the subliminal nature of the unseen, the sweet perfume caught on air that adds to the potency, for you will often sense it before you see it, clambering somewhere above your head.
The flowers that so often mark the early summer are having their moment and I will seek them out to bury my nose in them. In terms of perfume, honeysuckle is one of our most exotic natives, but it is a toughie, the seedlings springing up against the odds at the foot of a hedge or the edge of woodland. Their scarlet berries will have provided a welcome feast at the end of the previous summer and the seed will have found its way to the next habitat by a mixture of order and chance. A perfect spot, if you were a honeysuckle seedling, would be in the damp shade of overhanging branches, but with the opportunity of light to reach into as soon as you had your feet down. The combination of cool feet and sunshine to heat up the perfume and ripen fruit is made possible by a suitable host that can take the twine and reach of limbs.
The range of a mature honeysuckle is considerable and it will only settle and relax its reach once the plant has established a domain. This is why, if you have the room, the best way to grow them is to let them loose and enjoy the informality. But you have to choose a compatible host as the reality is that honeysuckle and roses are at odds with each other unless you choose a rose that you have no intention of pruning. Ramblers such as "Wedding Day" or "Rambling Rector" sent up into a tree are ideal, but a climbing rose that needs more regular maintenance will simply become inoperable come the time of untangling the nest.
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