Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens): A Native Vine for Hummingbirds

The slender, bright red, tubular flowers blooming at the ends of the coral honeysuckle vine will add a bright spot of color to your garden. The interior of the honeysuckle flowers is often yellow, making them stand out even more against the green leaves of this vine.

The vine itself is often a hue of pink or purple with bright green leaves that are oppositely arranged. Coral honeysuckle is a native, perennial, woody vine and can grow up to 15 feet in height. In its southern-most U.S. range, this vine is evergreen. As you move further north, it is semi-evergreen to deciduous.

Coral honeysuckle is native from Texas and all states east and northeast of Texas as well as north to Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas.

How to Grow Coral Honeysuckle

Coral honeysuckle, also known as trumpet honeysuckle, can be grown on a trellis, an arbor, or a fence and may reach a height of 15 to 20 feet. It can also be grown on the ground without a support, but the color of the flowers is much more visible when it is grown on a structure. It blooms from spring into the fall.

This red honeysuckle vine can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 4 to 9. Space your plants 3 to 6 feet apart for good growth. Coral honeysuckle vine is drought-tolerant and deer-resistant. It is pretty low maintenance – a set-it-and-forget-it type of plant.

Planting Coral Honeysuckle

You should plant your vine in full sun to get the most flowers, though this plant can tolerate part shade conditions. It prefers moist soil with good drainage and can tolerate a wide variety of soil types.

How to Propagate Coral Honeysuckle

The easiest way to grow new coral honeysuckle vines is by rooting a cutting. The best time of day to take cuttings is in the early morning. Take a cutting that is about 6 inches long from the soft part of the vine (non-woody portion). If you are taking more than one cutting at a time, place them in a glass of water until you are ready to put them in the soil.

Peel away the leaves from the bottom 2-3 inches of the cutting, leaving the leaves at the top 3-4 inches of the cutting. Remove any flowers.

Prepare your pots for the plants by filling them with potting mix, moisten the soil, and then poke a hole into the center of the soil. This will keep you from rubbing off all of the rooting hormone when you push your cutting into the soil. Next, dip the end of the cutting into rooting hormone and gently press it into the hole you created in your potting soil.

Keep the soil moist, but not wet while awaiting the roots to grow. Make sure you keep your coral honeysuckle cutting in indirect and not direct sunlight. Roots will begin to form in a few weeks.

Wildlife Value

This native honeysuckle vine attracts bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds that all feed from the nectar of its flowers. The bright red berries produced in the fall are songbirds.

Coral honeysuckle is a host plant for the caterpillars of the spring azure butterfly (Celastrina ladon) and the snowberry clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis), a type of sphinx moth.

Growth Rate of Native Honeysuckle

Unlike the Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), coral honeysuckle is not aggressive and has a slower growth rate. You can trim back any unwanted growth in late spring after the main bloom of flowers is over. This native vine blooms on new growth, so waiting until most of the flowers have bloomed means you won’t cut off too many future blooms.