Flower Profile: Honeysuckle
You might have noticed that every month, I like to feature its birth flower on the blog. For the month of June, those flowers are the rose and the honeysuckle. Since we’ve already talked about the rose, let’s share some of our favourite facts about the humble honeysuckle.
Invasive or just loyal?
Some honeysuckle plants, like Japanese honeysuckle, are incredibly invasive and can overtake other plants and take over your yard. This is one of the reasons that honeysuckle can sometimes symbolize devotion and everlasting bonds.
If you want to avoid choking out the rest of your garden, pick a honeysuckle such as the trumpet honeysuckle, which is a beautiful plant native to North America.
If you smell a honeysuckle, you can imagine it attracts pollinators. If you want hummingbirds, consider the red, tubular “trumpet” shaped flowers of the trumpet honeysuckle. They will surely bring these special visitors to your yard, and also bring in beautiful butterflies. You’ll be doing something great for the environment with this flowering vine, as well as being able to enjoy the beauty (and fragrance) of your yard.
Leave the berries for the birds
Although we can safely eat the flowers and nectar from a honeysuckle (as you can imagine, they taste sweet), humans have to stay away from the berries. These can be red, black, or blue depending on the variety of honeysuckle. Though the berries will make us sick, they aren’t poisonous to birds, bears, and other forest animals that consume them.
If you are looking for a leafy green to add to your diet, humans can also eat the leaves of the honeysuckle plant!
If you are having unpleasant dreams, you can try a little folklore and put honeysuckle under your pillow (or purchase a herbal pillow containing honeysuckle). This is said to ensure pleasant dreams. Or you can do what the Victorian age English did, and plant a honeysuckle at the front of the house to ward off evil spirits which might cause you to lose precious sleep.
Do you have a honeysuckle plant? We’d love to hear all about it!