Honeysuckle can winter in pot or in ground
Q: My honeysuckle has done extremely well outside in a large pot. I’d like to keep it over the winter into next year, but should I keep it in the planter or put it in the ground? What’s the best way to preserve and encourage further growth? — M.DB., San Antonio, N.M.
A: Much of how you’ll tend with the overwintering of your honeysuckle will depend on what type it is. As long as it’s a true Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), one that wears the creamy white and pale yellow blooms, it should be fine kept in the pot above ground as long as you continue to keep it watered, never allowing the soil to dry out completely.
In San Antonio, especially if you’re by the bosque or the river, the cooler weather does funnel to lower areas, keeping things a lot more susceptible to freezing/thawing temperatures during the winter months. By watering the pot you keep the root mass more insulated so to speak.
If you are truly concerned that the winter will be too cold to keep the honeysuckle in the pot then you have two options. One is to plant the honeysuckle outright into the ground. Make sure the hole you dig is a smidgen larger than the pot it’s in now and just as deep. Unpot the honeysuckle and get it in the ground.
Once you’ve set the honeysuckle into the ground and backfilled there’ll be left over soil from the hole you dug. Use that soil to create a moat encircling the outer edge of the hole you dug. Then water the newly planted honeysuckle slowly to fill the moat. You’ll be responsible for watering the honeysuckle periodically throughout the winter months, too. Don’t just set it and forget it! A second option is to dig a hole that the pot will sit in and without unpotting, bury the pot. In the spring you can unearth the pot and redisplay the whole thing without a lot of trouble. But that will depend on the pot’s size and if you’re capable of moving it.
However you choose to tend the honeysuckle, you can go ahead and trim it back now, as long as it has started to rest and go dormant, by a stout third in height and width. The trimming would certainly make the planting outright or pot burying easier so you wouldn’t get tangled by the vine arms while working.
And if you choose to leave the honeysuckle potted consider planting some pansies and ornamental kale in the pot so you have to remember to water! Any way you choose, as long as you water, and this is a “true” honeysuckle, it should make it through the winter months with your continued care.
Q: I can’t seem to grow a nice rosemary plant. I have several, but they die halfway and get that white sticky substance (I was offered an attached photo). Is this an insect or what? What is happening to mine? — D.O., Albuquerque
A: From the photo you attached I can’t and won’t try to diagnose the failure of the rosemary. I don’t like and have never grown rosemary, but I will offer a few thoughts.
The failed parts, they seem to be on one side of the plant. Are they peed on regularly by a dog? Have they been trampled or broken at the base? Did a weed whacker cut the trunk on that one side? Because of its age, has the plant’s trunk been “buried” deeper by sand and old leaf matter being blown in and piled at the plants base? If it’s watered by a drip system, is the dripper in that spot working properly? You have lots to check on.
As for the “white sticky substance,” there is an insect involved! Your rosemary is wearing the tell-tale evidence of “spittlebug.” It looks like someone has spit a lot of yucky foamy masses on your plants. Icky for sure!
In the foam you just might find a bug that looks quite a bit like a leafhopper. In fact these two bugs are related. The spittlebug poops (sorry) the foam as a protectionary measure. It snuggles down within the “yuck” and lives happily there during adulthood.
Best way to eliminate it now is spray it off with the hardest stream of water you can, washing the spittlebug houses away. Now, the young overwinter in decaying matter clustered around the plants, growing and staging into adults getting ready to re-infect next growing season.
So, your goal is to get the rosemary as tidy as possible, removing any and all captured stuff at the base and caught within the plant. This plant needs a better air flow. If you don’t get it cleaned up, you can bet you’ll have spittlebugs again next year. And while you’re tidying you might be able to figure out what has caused the “halfdead” that’s affecting the plant.
Good luck and Happy Diggin’ In!