Honeysuckle are starting to bloom

I am working on this little greenhouse with the hope of still getting some things started here this spring. Finished putting it together and it looks ok.






Now just to find a good heater as the weather is so cold.

Found the first blossoms on Blue Honeysuckle on Wednesday. Many more plants are showing signs of blooming and will in the next few weeks.

Growing on now

Many new seedlings are now growing on in 4" pots. Soil is Promix BX seed starting mix which seems to treat them very well. I am so intrigued by the leaves of one plant from seeds marked large shrub type. It is picture #3 and the plant leaning in the right corner of picture 2. Larger leaves than the others and very green.
There are about 90 plants so far and some new ones still coming.
Outside the buds are swelling so that means there will be blossoms in the next couple of weeks if the weather warms up.

New plants and some thoughts

So some new plants came to live in the plant room here and I will only comment on the "Haskap" varieties here. I bought a single plant of 9-15, 9-91, and Russian pollinator (Someone called it Northern Jewel but they seemed to be a little sketchy on this as it is just a "selection" for pollination). Because they are blooming already or will bloom, they will end up being planted in a semi dormant state as my observation is that they start shutting down as soon as the fruit is gone. Note the flowers on 9-15. I also brought in a couple of cuttings of Blue Honeysuckle to try in a prepared rooting compound.
These are from my best fruit size Japanese plants. Am trying to see if these will root right after cutting.

I wanted to note that the seedlings from Poland are very obvious as to large plant or larger berry. And the Japanese seedlings are very slow compared to both.









Now some comments about public and retail selling. And other stuff!

The plants above were purchased at Gardenscape in Saskatoon and it was quite frustrating to deal with people who have no interest in whether their customers are intelligent or not. Quite challenging.
I hope I do not present this kind of attitude when I am trying to serve people no matter wherever I am.
I have been trying to be knowledgeable about Blue Honeysuckle for several years now and there is still lots to learn. Craig Larson of Haskap Wine has a very good summary about this plant on his blog. This is a plant with a long history and though they may be referred to as Haskap for marketing to Japan, the truth is that they have a long history of use in Siberia and northern China. And it may turn out in fact that the selections being made for Canadian production are selling short the potential for neutraceutical manufacturing here in Canada. Or export of raw material for this purpose. It seems in my imagination that the potential for other uses could be the real market for larger producers here on the prairies. The thing that does impress me is the growers who are putting their money out for good sized plantations. Battle River Berries is one such grower. Others are following and this is good for the prairie economy.

Well enough of that. It is so exciting to see the snow going down outside and the seedlings sprouting in my basement.

Intersting seed arrives

This week there was an envelope in the mail with seeds of Actinidia arguta (red berry and brown berry), Codonopsis pilosula, Lilium martagon and Lilium trabkowe. And more Blue honeysuckle!
Here are some pics of seeds using a 10X magnifier:

Blue honeysuckle - Lonicera edulis









Codonopsis pilosula
















Actinidia arguta - Red Berry (Type of Kiwi)














Actinidia arguta - Brown Berry













Many more seeds than I wish to grow but how can you not grow them. We will see.

New seedlings coming

There are a good number of new baby honeysuckles coming up now so here are a couple of pictures. Some pellets have 2 seedlings so I am trying to cut them in half and get both plants to grow. I soaked some more pellets and cut them in half and put each half with a half of the seedling pellet each with a plant. Sounds complicated but I will do some again and posy a picture. Anyway it is good to see some germination as one never is sure until they begin to grow.

Finally an update!

Well it is planting time for Lonicera Blue honeysuckle seeds here in Saskatchewan. I was fortunate to gather seeds from several sources this summer and now in winter and so have planted several batches with some treatment of seeds to see if there are any benefits. Seed sources are:
One of my Japanese seedlings SAP30-06 which seems to have good flavour;

"Big shrubs" seeds from a friend in Poland;
"Big Berries" seed from a friend in Poland. (He is also working on selecting some good quality plants.)
Also seeds from a gardener in Sweden:

Lonicera kamchatika(bought at Simzas Nursery in Latvia);
Sinnaya Ptitsa ?(Bluebird) also from the same nursery; (identity may be questionable),
Lonicera "Amfora" and others.

So this will make for a diversity of plant material to put out this spring.

The first round of planting was in peat pellets. There seems to be some "offensive" growth starting so I am going to give them a sprinkle of No-Damp or something to prevent fungus growth. I have been disappointed in the past with Jiffy pellets getting so much other growth coming before the seeds germinate. I have covered the tray with another tray to cut down the light but still there are a couple with something starting as in the picture here.

I would really like to find someone who could supply a few seeds of a good selection in Northern China as there seems to be a number of advertisements from China for the juice as a good source of antioxidants. Anyone out there know someone who might know someone?

The plan is to get the seedlings up to 12 to 15 inches for planting in mid to late June.

Late bloomers and fruit

Two seedlings had late blossoms and one had fruit and here it is September 25. The fruit tasted good so I could not go back and get a better picture (this one is slightly out of focus)