{"id":611967205702,"date":"2025-10-16T16:35:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/uncategorized\/ode-to-honeysuckle-hedge\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T08:41:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:41:38","slug":"ode-to-honeysuckle-hedge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/hedging\/ode-to-honeysuckle-hedge\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Layers of a Shrub Honeysuckle Hedge"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Lonicera nitida<\/em> hedge in a local Somerset car park is a prime example of how good this hedge plant looks despite neglect!<\/h2>

A good hedge is thick and bushy down to the base, which is easy to maintain in most cases by trimming at least once or twice a year.
Years of neglect tend to produce hedges with sparse areas at the base, which eventually become gaps big enough to ride a boar through.<\/p>

This is not a problem for Lonicera nitida<\/a>, Shrub or Box Honeysuckle (i.e. the hedge kind, not the climbing<\/a> kind), which is practically immune to pollution and being sprayed with mud, and does this nifty thing called layering<\/strong>, meaning that its branches set root where they touch the ground. Over time, this causes the base of the hedge to slowly “walk” forward, preventing it from becoming sparse, even with no human help.<\/p>

This hedge is trimmed, cheap and cheerfully, only once a year:<\/p>

\"\"<\/figure>

It is growing happily on pretty bad soil right next to a concrete parking area: deeply compacted clay that bakes to a brick in summer and is underwater for days at a time in winter. It is never mulched or fed, and the worst weeds are ripped out every few years at best.
The base is regularly sprayed with car park puddle mud, which is a rich source of the three essential plant nutrients: engine oil, detergents, and bits of plastic.
Thanks to this diet, it is leafy right down to the ground:<\/p>

\"\"
Leafy base despite being covered in industrial mud<\/figcaption><\/figure>

If we poke our heads inside the hedge, we can see how the branches’ layering property achieves this (the base of the hedge can’t be seen, but it is around the right-hand edge of the below pic):<\/p>

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Who lives in a house like this?<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The old, less leafy stems coming from the right edge of the picture, going down to the ground and rooting, are from the original base of the hedge.
The new, leafy stems emerging from the ground, growing upwards and to the left, are coming from the roots made by the old stems.<\/p>

\"\"
Blue arrow: the old stems touch the soil and layer (root). Red arrow: new stems emerging from those new roots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

With the help of a plastic ruler, I can show you roughly how far these layering branches can walk:<\/p>

\"\"
Red arrow: original base of hedge. Blue line: approx 30cm – see next pic<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"\"
Ruler cannot reach from base of hedge to the first layer point, about 45-50cm away. After that, it layers again!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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