One of my favorite things starting in early spring is the smell of honeysuckle. To me honeysuckle smells like summer, like riding to the pool on my bike, like drinking Koolaid and getting a mustache, and like a baseball that was fouled into the deep honeysuckle brush that you can’t find; although you can easily find the other waterlogged balls that you lost last year. Even riding in a car, you can pass through pockets of their sweet fragrance. As a kid and now I still stick my head out the window.
But the honeysuckle is not native to the Midwest. They were first introduced into the United States in the mid to late 1800s from Europe and Asia for use as ornamentals, wildlife food and cover, and erosion control. The honeysuckle thrive in full sunlight, but can tolerate moderate shade, and are therefore aggressive invaders of a variety of sites including abandoned fields, roadsides, right-of-ways, woodland edges, and the interiors of open woodlands. Honeysuckle out competes and shades out desirable native woodland species, and can form pure, dense thickets totally void of other vegetation. So it looks like we need to reach some sort of a compromise with the honeysuckle. We do appreciate and enjoy the blanket of sweet fragrance and the accompanying flood of memories that your blossoms provide we simply request that you limit you invasive urges. Maybe along highways and away from baseball diamonds
