Lonicera sempervirens Cedar Lane

Lonicera sempervirens Cedar Lane is a climbing honeysuckle that stands out with its remarkably colourful vermillion red summer flowering. Its trumpet-shaped flowers, long and slender, grouped in bouquets and enhanced by dark green foliage, do not go unnoticed in the garden. Especially since it is not uncommon for the plant to sporadically bloom throughout the summer. Vigorous but of medium size, this variety is suitable for gardens of all sizes. Its cultivation presents no difficulty in most soils, preferably exposed to the sun.

Honeysuckle 'Cedar Lane' is derived from Lonicera sempervirens, a species native to the southeast of the United States. Very cold-resistant, it thrives in both waterlogged and drier soils in summer. This plant appreciates sunny or semi-shaded exposures. Its foliage will disappear in winter in our coldest regions, but will persist in moderate to mild climates. This Cedar Lane variety has been selected for its larger and more vividly coloured flowers. Honeysuckles belong to the Caprifoliaceae family.

'Cedar Lane', which grows rather quickly, produces stems of 3 to 4 m (10 to 13ft) that bear thick, opposite pairs of leaves of two types: those at the base are elongated and ovate, 7.5 cm (3in), those near the top, under the flowers, are smaller, more rounded and fused into a disc, so that the stem seems to pierce them. Their colour changes from purple to a slightly glaucous grey-green at maturity. The flowering takes place at the end of the young shoots, throughout the growing season, first in May-June in a massive manner, then more sporadically until September if the soil remains moist. The thin tube-shaped flowers, 7 cm (3in) long, are bright red on the outside but yellow on the inside. They are not fragrant but their nectar-richness attracts pollinating insects. They are gathered in dense and almost flat clusters, like the spokes of a wheel, in the axils of the leaves. After pollination, they produce non-edible red berries that are appreciated by birds. The young branches are green, their bark becomes brown and peels off over time, revealing a young straw yellow wood.

Lonicera 'Cedar Lane' is fantastic for quickly hiding anything that needs to be hidden in a garden, from an unsightly wire fence to an unattractive garden shed. Left to grow freely, it will fill in a declining hedge or adorn the edge of a grove of trees... In semi-shade, there are plenty of ideas for associations with clematis: for example, it can be combined with pretty clematis like montana Mayleen, climbing roses like Ghislaine de Féligonde or winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) or officinalis, a hardy passionflower like P. incarnata... This honeysuckle can also form beautiful groundcover on an inaccessible slope.