Vine honeysuckle for bonsai?

[leatherback]

Yesterday I had an oppertunity to collect two Lonicera caprifolium. As I can use them in my garden anyway, I decided to spend a bit of time getting them. I was wondering.. How suitable are they for bonsai culture? I could not find good examples of vine-honeysuckle used for bonsai.

Anyone have some insights?

 

[JoeR]

I've never found any with big enough trunks for anything except a forest or maybe if you twist it up and bend it like you would a juniper.

 

[painter]

here is my honeysuckle about to flower

 

[wireme]

Here's my only lonicera, native to my area, hard to call the habit of this variety either vine or bush, its kind of in between.

I keep it on the moist side, soil is much like all of my trees but a heavy moss covering and I try to water deeply as frequently as I can. I've never had large growth in a season but no health problems either.

New growth is very tender and kinks or scars with wiring easily, hardened growth is very brittle and snaps easily with no warning, be sure to have wire support on the outside curve of a bend.
Not particularly an easy tree to work on but easy to keep alive and if there's an enjoyable trunk might as well try.

 

[leatherback]

Cool trees Painter and Wireme! So.. I will be giving it a try. Assuming they survive.

The trunks are decent-sized I think. I had to get them out without damaging the paving, leaving me roughly two sections of a square foot in the middle of which the plants were growing to dig. So I came home with very little roots on the trunks. It has been sitting in a bucket of water with 'root assistent' solution overnight; Don't think it makes a big difference, but probably doesn;t hurt either. On Saturday I potted them and how they are in the shade, working hard at getting roots again

The two plants I dug up on Friday:

 

[wireme]

Cool, they look very interesting, well worth the effort IMO.

 

[leatherback]

Happy to report that they are recovering and the first flowerbuds are showing

 

[Alain]

I collected a honeysuckle from my yard last year. Good news: the hardest thing to do will be to kill them, they are very resistant to extraction!