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Lonicera Nitida

Lonicera is the latin name for honeysuckle, which seems a wholly inappropriate plant for garden railway landscapes.  However, the [group] Lonicera Nitida is radically different from what you imaggine as 'honeysuckle'.  Indeed it is frequently called 'Poor Man's Box' which gives a much better image.

There are a number of varieties, varying radically in habit, so take care when purchasing.

The picture to the right illustrates three varieties - yes, there's a rather limp, sorry, 'delicate', one in the middle between the two obvious ones.

Lonicera Nitida (Species)

posted 21 Feb 2010, 06:20 by Flatland Cheeseminer


This is the 'basic' Lonicera Nitida, with small dark green evergreen leaves.  It's hardy and tolerates my fairly unsubtle pruning of it.

Here it is with a visiting E&M/IOM train for scale.  In the top right of the picture is a snippet of the Baggensens Gold variety so you can see the difference in colour of leaf.

"Baggensen's Gold"

posted 15 Feb 2010, 14:25 by Flatland Cheeseminer   [ updated 21 Feb 2010, 06:20 ]


"Baggensen's Gold" is an easy plant to locate and grow.  If anything it can be a bit too enthusiastic and needs fairly frequent clipping to keep it from exploding.  It's easy to shape into reasonable 'trees', or to provide a hedge that doesn't look too out of place against the railway.

This variety, as the name suggests, has a distinctive yellow foliage.

Planted in: Well drained, crumbly soil; Cambridgeshire, UK.

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