Lonicera etrusca |
Native Region: Italy
Zone Range: 5-9
Preferred Climate: Full/semi sun; well draining average soil.
Harvest Date: Saturday 10 September, 2011
Seed count: 10-12
Description:
Flower clusters are intensely fragrant with dark pink and ivory individual blooms opening in sequence. Blooms from mid June to frost. Faint fuzz covers new growth. Nice dark pink colour on new woody tips. Drought tolerant when established. Semi evergreen in sunny sheltered spot. Easy to care for vine as I've never had to do anything with this plant other than put it in the ground and train it along the chain link fence growing 6 meters in all directions.
Notes:
I came across this honeysuckle in Masset on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Much to my surprise, it grows in many gardens...current and abandoned...from Masset to Queen Charlotte City. A venerable gardener had a magnificent specimen growing over a fence. When asked, he told me his mom grew this when he was a kid and the name of it was lost long ago. Its scent filled the air and the hummingbirds were fighting over the blooms with the bumblebees. I had to bring cuttings home. Now that its firmly established and identified (years later) it is now offered to you!
Cultivation:
Soak seed 24 hours. Prepare nursery pot with good well draining soil but have a sowing medium layer (4 cm deep) of peat/sand mix. Sow seed 7 mm deepthen sow in sand/peat mixture. Mist and mulch. Needs 2 months of 4 C; then germinate at 20 C. Should come up pretty quickly. Never store Lonicera seed at room temperature; always keep it in the fridge.
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