Bound By the Beauty: Honeysuckle

I love to garden, but I have a lot to learn! Some of my gardening attempts are flops, but occasionally I'll do something that works. For example, last year was the first year in our new house and when spring came along, I was anticipating what was going to emerge from the garden. I was excited to see the beautifully delicate orange kerria bloom along side my house and lily of the valley poke out of the flower beds, and the bright yellow forsythia bloom along our driveway. These were all plants and shrubs on my wish list- so I was very happy! But what our garden lacked was any summer blooming perennials, so I grabbed my perennial resource books, "Perennial Favorites", by Lois Hole and "Perennials for British Columbia" by Alison Beck and Marianne Binetti and listed what I wanted in our garden.

My favourite gardening books

Perennials to me are subtle, simple and reliable and I love this about them. They aren't flashy and flighty like annuals. Perennials are like a good friend- they are always in your life year to year and you appreciate them more and more because of this! Annuals show up and take the limelight with their bright colours and long blooming abilities, but that's it- after summer ends they are burnt out and gone.
One of my must haves was the simple but gorgeously intoxicating Honeysuckle. I found the perfect spot along our back fence for it. It gets enough sunlight here, it is away from the path of Rex, our black lab, and hopefully close enough to our patio that we will smell its incredible fragrance when we sit outside in the summer evenings. Last summer it bloomed, but it was still a baby so I knew if it survived during the winter it would be even better this summer. Well it survived and I was right! It has grown so much, I've had to trim it back a bit and tack it to our fence. I am even sharing it with our neighbors over the fence!