An excellent decoration of any garden plot can rightfully be considered a magnificent shrub - Tatar honeysuckle. As a cultivated plant for landscaping park areas and cities, it began to be used as far back as the 18th century. Due to its unpretentiousness, it quickly spread throughout Central Asia, Eastern Europe and China. If you want to decorate your garden plot with a hedge, decorative honeysuckle will be an ideal option.
What is this unusually beautiful plant? Tatar honeysuckle is a tree about 3.5-4 meters tall or dense shrub with dull dark green, slightly bluish leaves.
This shrub is a real find for a beginner gardener, because he is not capricious at all, has excellent resistance to frost and drought, and also easily tolerates shading. However, if you want the honeysuckle shrub to grow well, it is best to plant it in a bright sunny place. Tatar honeysuckle blooms profusely and quite long. For almost a month she will delight you with her fragrant dark pink or white flowers.
The plant tolerates transplant perfectly. When planting on a garden plot, the distance between the individual bushes should be about two meters. It is not demanding on the composition of the soil, however, on poor sandy and heavy moist soils, honeysuckle does not develop well.
Tatar honeysuckle is growing rapidly and after three to four years it can bloom and bear the first fruits in early August. In all varieties of honeysuckle, the Tatar fruits are inedible, poisonous and bitter in taste.
For lush flowering and good growth, honeysuckle, like any other ornamental plant, needs proper care. In early spring, you can make special mineral fertilizers, and before flowering, feed the plant with liquid top dressing with Kemira universal. In the hot season, the shrub needs moderate watering. Thinning out the honeysuckle in the early spring or autumn every two to three years. Old plants from 15 to 20 years old can be trimmed for rejuvenation. They will need about two to three years to recover. Decorative honeysuckle does not need special preparation for winter.
Today, many decorative forms and varieties of Tatar honeysuckle are in great demand. Rosea honeysuckle bushes at the end of May are abundantly covered with bright pink flowers with a diameter of more than 2 cm. In their appearance, they are similar to flowering peach trees. And at the end of summer, bright orange berries appear on the branches of the shrub.
Hack's Red honeysuckle has raspberry flowers. It blooms in the second half of May, capturing the first decade of June. And by August, the bush is decorated with dark red beads of berries.
Bright white flowers adorn Alba honeysuckle. By autumn, yellow berries appear in their place.
Basically, the Tatar honeysuckle is propagated by root shoots and cuttings, however, reproduction using seeds is possible. Please note that decorative forms bred by breeding are propagated only by cuttings.
As a rule, honeysuckle is practically not susceptible to diseases and pests, however, young shoots can be affected by aphids, scale insects and viral diseases, as a result of which so-called “witch brooms” form on branches. Since they do not have the best effect on the decorative properties of the plant, branches affected by the disease are removed.
Tatar honeysuckle is known not only for decorative, but also for healing properties. In folk medicine, the bark of a bush is used, which, due to its composition, has excellent antiseptic properties. Its broth is used in the treatment of goiter. And from branches and leaves make a water-alcohol tincture, which has anti-trichomonas activity.