Pruning & retraining a Lonicera x americana

Mon 18th Feb
Weather: Beautiful sunshine, 6°C but felt warm for a change.

I finished off pruning and training the Lonicera x americana (Caprifoliaceae family). Like the Ligustrum quihoui (privet) there was an amazing amount of material to work with. I had to be careful though, because the way the branches were so intertwined with each other & twirled around the pole, it was hard to see what was what, and I had to really look. It was the same principles, I had to take out all the flowered stems - they would be multiple branched ones instead of one long slender one. I would cut these to the base or the next best flowering shoot. Then I would thin out any weak or over congested stems, crossing over ones really doesn't count here, as long as there was enough air generally in the middle.

Weds 20th Feb
Weather: Still sunny but with a nippier wind. Apparently it peaked to 4°C.  Minuses at night though - not a deep frost but mornings are frosty.

Finished working on the Lonicera, retraining & retying it. I thought of it in tiers, trails of overflowing stems on top of each other. The stems will bow over more in time when they are heavy with flowers. So with this in mind I tied it in a way so that when this happens it won't just all topple on top of each other, or go to the ground and just reveal the pole, but graceful arches evenly spread. I also secured a couple at the top so that part of the pole especially would remained covered.