How to Propagate Honeyberry

A honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea) has the easy growth of the rest of the honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) family with the addition of delicious berries that look like elongated blueberries with a similar taste. The deciduous shrubs, perennial from U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 8, are cold-weather champs and are often the first fruit to appear in the spring. The plants bear on year-old shoots and need a second honeyberry to act as a pollinator for good fruit set. Seed is the most reliable propagation method when you want more of these productive plants.

Bowl
Fine mesh strainer
3-inch plant pots
Potting mix
Mulch
Shovel
Composted manure

Instructions

- 1
  Split open soft, ripe honeyberries with your fingers, and scrape out the pulp into a small bowl. Each fruit has a maximum of 20 light brown seeds. The edible seeds are flat and from 1 to 2 millimeters in diameter each.
- 2
  Add water to cover, and swirl the bowl around to get the small seeds to settle to the bottom of the bowl. Remove as much of the pulp from the bowl as you can.
- 3
  Pour the water through a fine-mesh strainer, and pick out the seeds from the remaining pulp.
- 4
  Fill 3-inch nursery pots with moist potting mix, and sow the fresh seed 1/8 inch under the surface. Keep the potting mix evenly moist until the seeds germinate in three to six weeks.
- 5
  Thin to the strongest plant in each pot, and keep the pots outdoors in a sunny, protected area.
- 6
  Mulch around the seedling pots to protect them over the winter.
- 7
  Amend a site in full sun with composted manure in early spring. Clear and amend enough soil to plant your young honeyberries 4 feet apart as single specimens or 3 feet apart to form a hedge.
- 8
  Set the plants 1 to 3 inches deeper into the soil than they were in their nursery pots to help establish a deeper root system.

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