Honeysuckle inhabits a dual and conflicting reality in the KC metro area.
On one hand, local ecologists actively eradicate the invasive plant species, saying it smothers and can kill forested habitats. Meanwhile, honeysuckle shrubs and flowers are popular with local gardeners, and one of the plants, of which several varieties are available at stores, will set you back about $30 on average.
“It is horrible,” says Christian Holderby, a conservation land steward at KCMO-based Heartland Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit that works to protect and restore the habitat of the Blue River Watershed. “They’re everywhere, and they’re killing everything below them.”
Among the biggest threats are bushy flowering varieties of honeysuckle from Asia, including Amur and Bella hybrids, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. (Some honeysuckle vine vegetation is native to the state.) The Amur and Bella hybrid bushes spread fast in April and crowd out native plants on forest floors, with their leaves absorbing sunlight and nutrients and blocking native vegetation closer to the ground.
Holderby and the HCA regularly hold honeysuckle removal events at the organization’s Heartland Outlook Preserve—40 acres of green space in south KCMO, near Bannister Road and Highway 71, with plenty of honeysuckle to clear. It takes two people about five hours to clear half an acre of dense honeysuckle, Holderby calculates.
But what about ornamental honeysuckle bushes pruned back neatly in a yard?
“Birds love those berries,” says Holderby, pointing out that where the birds go, the berry seeds will follow. “We need to stop buying honeysuckle and making the problem worse.”
Although certain kinds of honeysuckle, under the genus umbrella of Lonicera, are considered invasive, there aren’t laws against buying or selling the plants, which Courtney Masterson, executive director and ecologist at Lawrence-based Native Lands Restoration Collaborative, says poses an educational challenge.
Masterson would like to see more plants native to the area used decoratively in residential yards and other landscaped spaces. She says NLRC tries to “build relationships with nurseries and provide them with native plant materials, whether they be small native plants they can grow and sell or native seeds.”
The right native plants, Masterson says, can still provide the level of privacy homeowners require.
NLRC also tries to encourage commercial developers to use non-invasive plants, and her group and others track large projects to understand the potential impacts on forested areas. They also provide contractors with information on what to avoid planting and native plant alternatives.
“A honeysuckle shrub can produce thousands of berries with a really high germination rate in their seeds,” Masterson says. “The invasive species that we’re all dealing with can get really complex and difficult to deal with pretty quickly.”
