Coral Honeysuckle Vine Gets Its Groove On

The native coral honeysuckle vine, Lonicera sempervirens, is fully coming into its own this year. Finally getting its groove on. I planted this about 3 years or so ago and it has slowly twined its way up the front porch post. It's hosted a ton of snowberry clearwing moth caterpillars. But, it's never really shone all its own. It's one of those plants that John walks by from time to time and tssks a little under his breath, admonishing me for not watering it or doing something to make it better. Until now.

This gorgeous vine is blooming and blooming and growing and growing. And the best part is, I haven't done a darn thing but ignore it.

Now, I may even need to trim it. By the way, these take well to trimming. I've even seen them hedged into relatively squarish shapes in the middle of garden beds with not a support in sight for the twining vines.

The long tubular red flowers are supposed to be timed with the hummingbird migrations. I haven't seen any hummers around here yet this season, but the honeysuckle ought to bloom for a while longer. Hopefully, it'll serve as a respite for some of the little birds.

As you can see from the top photo, the purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, is also blooming like nuts already. Seems really early this year. The echinacea in the back are barely even poking their new leaves above ground, but this group up front never died back and were ready to go for it at the first feel of warm weather.