Death by Honeysuckle

 Death by Honeysuckle

 

Sounds like a book title, doesn’t it? Death by Honeysuckle by Wynott Garden?

 

I live in a community known as Cinnamon Woods in Ohio. I’ve been wondering since I  moved here in 2017 if a more accurate name would be Honeysuckle Hollow. The vegetation gets its name from the fragrant white flower it produces. Bees love it. It serves a purpose. I think.

 

The massive bushes are everywhere. I’m not sure there is one homestead in my neighborhood completely free of the invasive brush. 

 

I’ve cut, pulled, sprayed, and dug as much as I can. The brush and I seem to have reached an impasse. 

 

Don’t misunderstand. Honeysuckle is actually pretty and could make a nice hedge. That is, IF it stayed where it was planted and didn’t have a mind of its own. 

The Honeysuckle Flower
has a sweet fragrance
bees love.

However, the new growth twists and turns. It has wound itself around sections of my fence, threatening to pull the entire fence apart. My grandson, Spencer, dug several roots of the miserable plant out from a flowerbed in my back yard. We chopped and dug as much as we could. I thought I had the monster licked. But when spring arrived, a couple of small, noticeably “dead” stumps started sprouting new growth. I sprayed a brush killer on them to remind them who’s the boss.

New growth from
 a dead, woody, 
honeysuckle stump.

I hired someone to clear the honeysuckle from around the woodpile at the back of my property. Only then did I discover I owned a good fifteen feet more land than I thought!

 

My ongoing battle with honeysuckle is akin to a low budget horror film: Invasion of the Honeysuckle. 

 

And believe it or not, people buy and plant honeysuckle! I’m not kidding. Google it if you don’t believe me. You can buy seeds for eight bucks on Amazon or purchase one of the little monsters in a pot for twenty dollars. 

 

Hmm…now that I think about it…I have some lovely little plants for sale. Beautiful honeysuckle bushes to create your fragrant, private, backyard haven. If I dig them and plop them into an old coffee can, I’ll give you a great deal…$10 each if you live out of state and sign a promise to never plant them in Ohio. EVER.