Lonicera Tatarica

I have 2 of these in my garden in France, they both grow very quickly (like most things here), unfortunately there seems to be more growth than flowers. When do you prune yours?

Hi Madameann,

This one used to be like that too ... lot's of spindly light brown wood with small amounts of green growth at the ends and tiny flowers from mid April. It was like that for years, and to be honest I had no idea what the shrub was at the time.

The shrub stands at the North East corner of the garden, on a mound - and takes the full force of the North wind slipping from the roof of a bungalow.

By the beginning of October it's pretty much dropped all of it's leaves and the birds have eaten the berries.

What I've done for the last few years is this; In October (same as I do for my Buddleias), I cut everything down to waist height and reduce it's width in proportion to it's height. Mainly to stop the Autumn and Winter winds thrashing and breaking it. Nothing fancy, just a good tidy-up.

I keep an eye on it from the end of February/beginning of March for the first signs of growth (little buds starting to appear along the length of the stems and branches). That's when I give it a formative prune. Any branches that are more than a few years old I saw back to a few inches above the ground and everything else I cut back to strong growth and buds - leaving nothing longer than 2 to 2.5 feet maximum.

This year, after pruning in March I did (kind of) feed it too. Actually all I gave it was a load of wet wood ash from the bar-b-q I forgot to clean out from the previous Summer.

By the end of March she is a mass of healthy, lush green foliage and by mid April is in full flower (and faintly scented this year too). At her peak even after the heavy pruning she ends up 7-8 feet heigh and 10-12 feet across.

I really hope this helps, but naturally you'll need to adjust for your different growing season.