Hall's honeysuckle

Sun

Full sun to partial shade; flowers most freely in sun but tolerates considerable shade.

Water

Water regularly during establishment; established plants tolerate short dry spells but flower better with moderate moisture.

Soil

Adaptable to most reasonably drained soils, including clay; avoids neither acidic nor alkaline conditions, but performs poorly in persistently waterlogged ground.

Height

15-30 ft (4.6-9.1 m)

Spread

6-10 ft (1.8-3 m), spreading much farther if stems are allowed to root

Flowers

Late spring through summer, often continuing into autumn in mild climates; fragrant white tubular flowers age to creamy yellow.

Foliage

Opposite, oval green leaves on long twining stems; evergreen in mild climates, semi-evergreen or deciduous in colder areas.

Growth

Fast

Care needed

High

• Pollinators
• Deer resistant
• Cold hardy
• Heat tolerant
• Wildlife
• Low allergen
• Fragrant

Northern hemisphere months. In Australia, shift them by six.

Difficulty

Moderate

Toughness

Very tough

Pick your zone, country, light and whether you have pets.

1. Planting day

   2 ft (0.6 m)

2. After 1 year

   3 ft (1.1 m)

3. After 2 years

   5 ft (1.5 m)

4. After 3 years

   6 ft (1.8 m)

   full size

About 3 years to full size.

From a typical nursery size, at an average rate for this kind of plant. A rule of thumb, not a forecast.

Cats and dogs

Toxic

Invasive in

the US

In the garden

Spreads vigorously: plan to contain it.

Growth rate

Fast

• Check local invasive-plant restrictions before planting; avoid it near woodland, waterways or other natural areas.
• Provide a strong trellis or arbor and tie young shoots loosely to guide their growth.
• Water deeply during dry weather in the first growing season.
• Apply a thin organic mulch, keeping it clear of the main stems; routine feeding is rarely necessary.
• Lift or remove trailing stems before they root, and remove seedlings promptly.
• Remove spent flower clusters before berries develop to reduce seed dispersal.

Pruning. In late winter or early spring, remove dead and tangled stems and cut overgrown growth back to a manageable framework; hard renovation pruning will delay flowering. Shorten escaping shoots throughout the growing season and remove rooted runners completely.

Late winter

Prune congested growth and inspect the trellis, ties and supporting posts.

Spring

Remove seedlings and rooted runners, then mulch around retained plants.

Late spring

Train new shoots onto the support before they reach neighboring shrubs or trees.

Summer

Check for escaping stems, water young plants in dry weather and remove fading flower clusters before fruit forms.

Autumn

Remove remaining berries where practical and check the surrounding ground for newly rooted stems.

• Where it is not invasive or restricted, train it over a substantial arbor to bring fragrance close to a seating area.
• Use on a freestanding trellis for a dense seasonal screen, with access on both sides for pruning.
• Train along a sturdy boundary fence, keeping it separate from trees and shrubs that it could smother.

Garden styles it suits: Cottage garden, Traditional, Romantic rose garden, Sensory garden and Evening garden.

Plant it with: Catmint, Hardy geranium and Garden sage.

Wildlife: Flowers provide nectar for bees, moths and, in North America, hummingbirds. Birds eat the black berries and spread the seeds; in invaded habitats, dense growth can suppress native plants and reduce habitat diversity.

• Uncontrolled spread: remove seedlings and rooted runners promptly; repeated cutting alone may not kill established root systems.
• Aphids on soft shoots: wash off with water and encourage natural predators; use insecticidal soap if an infestation persists.
• Powdery mildew: thin crowded stems, improve airflow and water the soil rather than the foliage.
• Sparse flowering: increase light where possible, avoid nitrogen-rich fertilizer and remember that hard spring pruning delays bloom.

Do not eat the berries or foliage. They are potentially toxic to people, dogs and cats, with ingestion most often associated with vomiting, abdominal discomfort or diarrhea. Horse-specific toxicity information is limited, so keep it out of grazing areas and do not feed prunings to livestock.

Where it spreads. Japanese honeysuckle, including 'Halliana', spreads aggressively by rooting stems and bird-dispersed seed. It is invasive across much of the eastern, southeastern and midwestern United States, with additional problem populations on the Pacific coast and in Hawaii.

• Common honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)

  Its flowers form terminal clusters at shoot tips, often with pink or purple coloring outside; Japanese honeysuckle usually bears paired flowers in the leaf axils.

• Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)

  It has clusters of long red or orange trumpets and upper leaf pairs fused into a disk beneath the flowers; Hall's honeysuckle has separate leaves and white-to-yellow flowers.

• Gold-and-silver honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)

  This is the same species rather than a separate lookalike. 'Halliana' is selected for abundant, prolonged flowering, but an unlabeled plant cannot reliably be identified as this cultivar from flowers alone.

Lonicera honors the German botanist Adam Lonitzer, japonica means 'Japanese', and 'Halliana' commemorates George Rogers Hall, who introduced Japanese plants to American cultivation.

Propagation. Readily propagated by layering or summer softwood cuttings where planting is appropriate and legal. Vegetative propagation preserves the cultivar; seedlings do not reliably come true and should not be allowed to spread.

Accepted botanical name

Lonicera japonica

In the US and Canada

Introduced in Canada, Hawaii, the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico.

Native range

China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan.

Measured

Soil pH 4.9 to 8.3. Average height 30 cm.

Sources: GBIF (CC BY 4.0), USDA PLANTS and Trefle (CC BY 4.0). The care and design notes are LandscapeGPT's own.