[Code Red]

I've been working hard this year to tame my widerness of a garden and now have a 30 foot patio that I'm very proud of, with a brick arched entrance at the end flanked by two trellises.  I'd like to grow honeysuckle up them and although it's late in the year I'd like to get some reasonable results as soon as possible.

I've read about Winter Honeysuckle Lonicera fragrantissima and I love the idea of having a fragrant back garden in the middle of winter, but I also want it to look nice over the following summer too.

Is it practical to grow this on the same trellis as a summer variety, say Lonicera periclymenum or would there be some kind of planty conflict between the two?

Any other suggestions welcome too!

[gillie]

We have a winter honeysuckle.  It is a shrub rather than a climber and does not need a trellis.  While the occasional whiff of its perfume is nice its flowers are not at all spectacular and it looks a bit scruffy in the summer so I would plant it in an out of the way spot where you can just appreciate the perfume.

There are a number of other perfumed winter flowering shrubs.  I like Wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox, but it takes a few years to start flowering. There are also various forms of Hamamelis, which can look spectacular flowering through frost and snow, but  not all of them are fragrant.

Cheers,

Gillie

[sunshineband]

TBH I think that most summer honeysuckes would completely swamp the winter flowering shrub, and look a bit of a mess. there are a few winter flowering climbers you could consider.

This site is very helpful in helping you find something suitable

plantfinder.com

(Thanks MoS for the heads up on this a while back)