How to Shop for Honeysuckle Flowers

There are many varieties of honeysuckle that shopping for the perfect flower for your garden can seem a bit overwhelming. Shopping for new honeysuckle flowers shouldn't be stressful. Most varieties of honeysuckle have very similar planting and growing requirements, so you should make your decision based upon what variety appeals most to you personally. Just be sure when you pick out your plant that you pick a young, healthy one. Don't buy anything that already looks dried out, brown or wilted. 

Best Fragrance

Honeysuckle's sweet scent is one of its biggest selling points, and some varieties are sweeter than others. Pick up a Lonicera periclymenum if you want to fill your entire garden with the flowers' fragrance. This species is red, gold and white and is guaranteed to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. If you can't find a Lonicera periclymenum, go with either a Lonicera periclymenum Belfica or a Lonicera periclymenum Serotina. The former is an early summer flowering, hot pink and yellow type of honeysuckle and the later blooms hot pink and white blossoms in late summer. If you found all three varietals, you could potentially smell honeysuckle throughout the entire summer.

Best Flowers

Not every gardener is seduced by a pretty smell. Maybe you are lusting after big, colorful blooms. If gorgeous blossoms are more your thing, then check out Lonicera x tellmanniana. This shade-loving honeysuckle produces huge, tangerine colored trumpets in the early summer. Plant a Lonicera brownii Fuchsiodes and you'll be enjoying big, deep scarlet blooms every autumn. As an added benefit, the Fuchsiodes also smells nice. 

Best Ground Cover

You could be more interested in your honeysuckle's foliage than you are in the flowers. If you need a variety of honeysuckle well-suited to ground cover, pick the Japanese honeysuckle Lonicera japonica Purpurea. This honeysuckle bears large, red flowers set amidst dark green foliage in the spring and summer which eventually turns burgundy in the fall.