All but the smallest gardens need a significant number of shrubs to fill the beds and make an effective and attractive garden. Yet time is always limited for plant maintenance, so it makes lots of sense for all but the most dedicated gardener to use simple, low-maintenance plants to fill much of the garden, leaving prime spots for high-quality – and often more demanding – plants to be grown. Few things look as attractive as chunky mounds of foliage, small enough not to obscure shrubs behind them, yet broad enough to fill significant areas of ground. If they have attractive blooms and berries too, then all the better. For gardeners in cooler zones we have exactly that.

The  Emerald Mound Honeysuckle is a dwarf deciduous shrub that grows no more than 3 feet tall, but can cover 5 or 6 feet of bed space with rich-green foliage. It puts on an attractive showing of white and creamy-yellow flowers and a crop of bright-red berries by late summer. It’s easy to grow in cooler zones, and super low-maintenance – just plant it and stand back. It grows in poor soil as well as in new urban developments, and it tolerates polluted city air and road salt too.

Growing the Emerald Mound Honeysuckle

Size and Appearance

The Emerald Mound Honeysuckle is a deciduous shrub that quickly grows into a dense mound of slender twigs and branches, carrying bright emerald-green foliage. It grows just 2 to 3 feet tall, but forms a broad mound 4 to even 6 feet across. The stems are slightly hairy, especially when young, and a soft gray-brown color. New leaves sprout very early in spring. They emerge with a fine hairy covering, giving them a silvery-green color, and this matures to a bright green. The color lasts right into fall, without any fall colors, other than some purple tones, before falling as the temperatures drop. The leaves are soft and slightly hairy, with a pleasant touch, and they are 1¼ to 2½ inches long, rounded ovals with smooth edges.

From May to early June, while the plant looks fresh and at its best, pairs of small buttery-yellow and white flowers grow along the stems. These are a little more than ½ inch long, with prominent bushy stamens protruding from them, adding a bright look for several weeks. These flowers develop into berries, which are bright red and attractive by late summer and into early fall.

Using the Emerald Mound Honeysuckle in Your Garden

This shrub is ideal for filling foreground areas of larger shrub beds, spacing plants 3 feet apart to create a continuous plant mass. It’s fast growing and with its hardiness is ideal for filling a new garden with plants within a few seasons. Use it to edge a large bed, or mass-plant it in spaces between larger shrubs. It can easily be trimmed into a low dividing hedge in your garden, or to surround a patio or terrace with green beauty. It can also be used in zones 5 and 6 to fill planter boxes for terraces and balconies.

Hardiness

This is a plant for areas with cooler summers, not for places with hot and dry or hot and humid summer weather. It grows well in zones 4, 5 and 6, but in warmer zones it is prone to mildew and leaf diseases.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

In cooler zones the Emerald Mound Honeysuckle will grow happily in full sun, but in zone 6 it should receive some afternoon shade. It grows in almost all soils, including poor soil and urban construction soils, as long as they are well-drained. It will also grow near Black Walnut trees, which have the capacity to kill or stunt many shrubs planted near their roots. For the fastest and best growth, plant in soil enriched with organic material and mulched. Water regularly when young.

Maintenance and Pruning

This plant is virtually maintenance-free. It isn’t bothered by pests or diseases as long as the summers aren’t too hot. It isn’t eaten by deer, and it is drought resistant once established. It can be trimmed as needed – the best time is after the first growth of spring has matured. Usually just one trim is all it takes, unless you want a very neat look. Older plants can be regenerated by cutting back to a few inches from the ground, fertilizing and allowing it to quickly grow back.

History and Origin of the Emerald Mound Honeysuckle

The fly honeysuckle, Lonicera xylosteum, grows wild across a large area from southern England across Europe into Turkey, the Middle East, eastern Siberia and even into parts of China. Wild plants grow in open places and around woodlands, reaching about 10 feet in height and 12 feet in spread. Most honeysuckle plants are pollinated by bumblebees, but this species is pollinated by flies, which accounts for its odd name.

The variety called Emerald Mound is probably the same as the variety called ‘Compacta’. That plant was found and named by A. Wroblewski in 1931, at the Kornik Arboretum in Poland. In the 1950s it was being grown at the Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois, with the name ‘Nana’, and from there, by the 1980s, it apparently came into the nursery trade with the name Emerald Mound

Buying the Emerald Mound Honeysuckle at the Tree Center

For cool zones this shrub really is a ‘must have’ to fill your garden with easy-care shrubs that are attractive and interesting through the seasons. It is always in high demand, especially with new gardeners, so order yours now, while we still have plants available to ship to you.