Lonicera japonica Red World - Japanese Honeysuckle

The Lonicera japonica Red World is a variety of Japanese honeysuckle, a vigorous plant with a highly scented flowering. It is equally decorative when climbing on a tree or structure as when it crawls on the ground. During summer, it is adorned with small bouquets of white-pink flowers with a pleasant evening fragrance. These flowers bring life to a dense dark green foliage that will persist more or less depending on the severity of the winter. Like clematis, this climbing plant that wraps around its neighbors requires little maintenance: it thrives with its head in non-burning sun and its feet in shade, in rather moist and ordinary soil.

The Japanese honeysuckle, scientifically known as Lonicera japonica, is a climbing and woody plant, more or less evergreen, belonging to the caprifoliaceae family. This plant is easy to grow in all regions and originates from East Asia. In the wild, it shows vigorous growth and is best suited for slightly wild and spacious areas.

The 'Red World' variety stands out for the colour of its flowers. With rapid growth, this honeysuckle will reach a height of about 6m (20ft) with a spread of 3m (10ft). Its long stems wrap around any support they encounter, but they can also crawl and form ground cover. They bear simple, ovate, and pointed leaves, thick and strongly veined, arranged in an opposite manner. The leaves are a fairly dark green colour with a slight shine. If the winter is not too cold, they will remain attached to the stems. From June to August, a multitude of tubular flowers, measuring 4cm (2in), appear in clusters at the axils of the leaves. Divided into two lips, they display prominent stamens and a bicolour hue, with the exterior being pink-red and the interior turning creamy white. This flowering, with its sweet and penetrating fragrance, attracts numerous pollinating insects, particularly bees and bumblebees, followed in the evening by night-flying moths like the Sphinx. After pollination, the flowers produce small fleshy berries with a shiny black-violet color, which are not edible but highly sought after by birds.

This generous Red World honeysuckle can be planted in the ground, away from harsh sunlight, with the base in shade: it will thrive, for example, near the base of an old tree, between its large roots, provided there is a good amount of planting soil. Naturally, it is perfect for covering anything that needs to be hidden: fences, wire mesh, or sheds, as long as there is a support available. It is less known for its ability to wrap around very narrow supports, transforming even the smallest pole into a vegetated column. It can also be allowed to colonize the ground in a slightly wild area of the garden. It forms a beautiful combination with clematis. It also fits well in a hedge, alongside flowering shrubs such as lilacs, mock oranges, deutzias, or even arbustive ceanothus. If you enjoy its fragrance, plant it near the terrace or a window. The evergreen foliage in a moderate to mild climate allows you to camouflage a wall or fence even in winter.