Plant ID - climber

Melanie Richardson2

Can someone tell me what this is, please? It's a climber or vine of some sort, stems are reddish purple on top and green-yellow on the underside. It hasn't got any flowers as far as I can see. It's running rampant along the back fence of my garden. Thank you!

nutcutlet

some sort of Lonicera 

Melanie Richardson2

Wow, really? I'd assumed it was a weed given the state of my garden at the moment!

I don't see any sign of flowers on it yet (and don't remember any being there in previous years) - is there something I should be doing to get it to flower? It's at the top of a steep slope against a fence, gets plenty of sun in the summer.

Dovefromabove

Honeysuckle (being a woodland plant) likes its feet in the damp shade and it's face in the sun, so it should be happy there ... it probably needs to get to the top of the fence to make its flowering growth ...  it flowers most on growth made the previous year so providing it's not cut back this year you may well see flowers next year. 

Melanie Richardson2

Thanks Dovefromabove - I think it might not be quite damp enough for it, it's planted at the top of a slope and i think the fence might act as a rain shield. its also lacking any real support system. I shall have to see if it's fixable. Is it worth trying to move a plant like this to better conditions? 

Dovefromabove

I have honeysuckles and clematis on a bank in a similar situation, but  against a north-facing fence.. there is a rain-shadow effect and I have a soaker hose along the bank  to give it a real soaking when the bed seems dry, particularly in the run up to flowering.  

Since I did this, and since I've added home made compost mulch to the bed every spring and started feeding all the climbers with specialist Clematis feed in the spring, we've had really good flowering.

I've put vine eyes and wires across the fence for support.  

I don't know whether you could move the honeysuckle ...... it depends on it's size.  What you could do is to layer some of the shoots to make cuttings.   Within a few months you'll have new honeysuckle plants ready to detach and pot up to grow on and plant out next year.