Goldnet or Yellow-net
Oakleafed Honeysuckle
"Come, my Matilda, now while some
Few drops of rain are yet to come,
In this honeysuckle bower
Safely sheltered from the shower,
We may count the colours o'er. --
Seven there are, there are no more."
-Charles Lamb
(1775-1834)
(1775-1834)
The scented yellow summer flowers of this honeysuckle vine are very pleasing for their perfume, but are rather inconspicuous & not generally numerous. The vine is really grown for the highly unusual oaleaf-shaped, lime-green & golden veined variegated foliage.
It also produces a few blue-black berries of ornamental interest for late summer & early autumn, not very many, & not regarded as edible, though birds like them.
There are two distinct leaf types, plane 'Aureoreticulata' has ovate leaves like the species & is the form nearly always seen distributed through our local nurseries. But what we have is the strain with leaves the shape of oakleaves.
We were at a nursery in a nearby town when Granny Artemis ran up to me while i was checking out with a few small plants, & she asked me, "Have you ever seen a honeysuckle with oak-shaped leaves?" I did a quick-search of the brain-index & could only envision the usual arrangement of pairs of round leaves, so said, "Nope." She said, "Well, they have one!" I didn't quite believe it & suspected something was mislabeled, but I left the check-out counter to check it out, & sure enough, it was almost the goldenet honeysuckle I'd often seen for sale, but there was no doubthing this one had oak-shaped leaves, so we trundled back to the check-out with one more item.
Since obtaining it, I've looked with greater scrutiny at the nursery stocks here & there, & 90% of the time the leaves are round. I like the oalkleaf form much better, since it is after all grown mainly for the foliage, & this one's foliage is doubly unique for shape as well as color.
Though restrained compared to the species, Oakleaf Goldnet Honeysuckle can be a little rampant especially in the south, where it is evergreen or semi-evergreen. In the Pacific Northwest all Japanese honeysuckle cultivars are perfectly restrained, perhaps because the cooler weather enforces a deciduous habit upon it so that it cannot get out of hand, & 'Oakleaf Aureoreticulata' is more restrained than most, climbing to a mere twelve feet with a twelve foot spread, less than half the size of the species.
Though usually grown as a climbing vine, it can also be grown as a groundcover creeper, or it can be hung from baskets & containers, or over garden walls.