Twinberry Honeysuckle (Lonicera involucrata)
Twinberry is an outstanding native shrub in the honeysuckle family. It has natural elegance with an almost formal rounded shape, and nearly year around visual interest. West of the Cascades this amazing bush is very drought tolerant, while still readily accepting regular garden water, and tolerating seasonal flooding. Twinberry's flowers appear in May and continue to flower through July often with berries (both forming and ripe). This creates a beautiful gem speckled look with bright yellow tube flowers and purple/black berries ringed with bright red bracts!
Bees like Twinberry flowers (you will often see Bumblebees feeding from the flowers), but Hummingbirds LOVE the flowers! Twinberry makes an excellent long flowering addition to your Hummingbird garden, flowering right as Red Flowering Currant flowers finish! Once Twinberry flowers have finished the ornamental berries hang on until the song birds happily move in to feast. Even after the berries are consumed the showy red bracts will decorate the bush for months! Deer do like Twinberry and will browse the leaves, but this plant is well adapted and quickly recovers.
Twinberry is an excellent addition to both a formal garden or an neglected corner of your yard. Twinberry grows fairly quickly. It's mature size is ~12 feet tall x 10 feet wide, and accepts pruning very well. Twinberry is deciduous, but it grows densely enough to make a very effective privacy hedge even after it has lost it's leaves for Winter. Twinberry is an excellent substitute for the more invasive European Laurel or Privet shrubs!
Each seed packet contains 50 seeds and germination instructions are included.
Twinberry Honeysuckle at a glance
- Average growth dimensions - 2-12 ft tall x 3-10 ft wide
- Dormancy - Winter deciduous
- Plant type - Shrub
- Sun - Full sun - part shade
- Water - Moist - dry
- Flowering time - March - August
- Flower color - Yellow - yellow with reddish orange highlights
- Soil preference - Highly adaptable