Lonicera hirsuta – Hairy Honeysuckle – 5-Pint

A northern species which, for some unknown reason, is largely absent from horticulture, even at native plant nurseries. We have a plant growing in our gardens, obtained many, many years ago at the New England Wildflower Society (now Native Plant Trust). It puts on a show every year as you can see from the accompanying photos. What it does not do is produce much in the way of viable seeds. It does produce fruit, but the vast majority of fruits have small vestigial seeds. We think the plant is self-sterile, needing to be pollenized by a different plant. We’ve tried planting a second plant in the hopes of providing cross-pollination, but it has yet to mature and begin flowering. We had pretty much given up much hope of propagating the species when, in late 2024, we came across an occurrence of the plant in the Catskills of Green County. We plan on returning to the plant in 2025, hoping there are other nearby plants that can cross-pollinate it, to collect viable seeds.

In the meantime we have obtained a few very young plants from a grower in Wisconsin (the only nursery in the United States the we are aware of that is growing the species). If they have established well enough we will offer them for sale in 2025.