It inhabits roadside areas, farm hedges, stream margins, plantations, scrubland, wasteland, gullies and forest margins. It can also be found around fences and outlying farm buildings at times. It is more common in wetter locations.

The plant itself is a many-stemmed perennial shrub. The stems are green, straight, hairless and hollow. The leaves are an elongated heart shape, more pointed at the tip than the base, and can be quite large (to about 15cm long).

The species can be best identified by its distinctive white funnel-shaped flowers, surrounded by a collar of larger, drooping, red-purple bracts (a bract looks like a cross between a leaf and a flower, and encloses or collars the actual flower). The flowers are present during the period from December to May. Himalayan Honeysuckle also produces drooping clusters of roundish, deep brown-purple berries of 7-10mm diameter, the juice of which is very staining.

The plant disperses via the abundant seeds, which are distributed by birds eating the berries and by waterways transporting fallen berries.

Once established, Himalayan Honeysuckle forms dense thickets that grow aggressively and displace native species.

MANUAL REMOVAL

Isolated or scattered specimens or smaller clumps of Himalayan Honeysuckle can be dug out quite successfully. It is safe to leave plants that have been dug out to wither and rot, but the removed material can also be satisfactorily mulched or composted.

If native species in the removal site are not fast-growing, it can be a good idea to replant the immediate location with something that will ‘fill the gap’, to discourage re-establishment of the Himalayan Honeysuckle

HERBICIDES TO CONTROL HIMALAYAN HONEYSUCKLE

Cut & Stump Paint Herbicides to Kill Himalayan Honeysuckle

G360 GLYPHOSATE – 200ml/L water, or G-540 GLYPHOSATE – 130ml/L water, or Granny Herbicide – 90g/L water
TRICLO Herbicide – 100ml/L
GrassMate – 100ml/L
MSF600 – 5g/L
Cut'n'Paste - Glimax Professional or Bamboo Buster applied as a 4-5mm gel on the freshly cut stump is effective and easy to use with no mixing

Any of these four herbicide options is suitable for stump painting. The choice is just a matter of which of the products you have on hand. Cut the plant off as low to the ground as possible, and liberally coat the stump with the herbicide mixture immediately after cutting, to ensure herbicide penetration.

Spot Treatment Herbicides to Kill Himalayan Honeysuckle

Buckshot applied dry at 55g per square meter sprinkled around the base of each plant and out to the drip line. The plant is then left to die standing. This is an excellent ‘target-of-opportunity’ treatment when carried on the bike or Ute.

Spot Spraying Herbicides to Kill Himalayan Honeysuckle

For larger thickets and clumps that are impractical for manual removal, spot treatment or cut & swab or cut & paste, the best control method is spraying.

TRICLO Herbicide or GrassMate – 6ml/L by knapsack (i.e 90ml in a 15L knapsack). Add SprayWetter penetrant at 15ml/15L.
MSF600 – 35g/100L by handgun, plus 100ml SprayWetter penetrant. Metsulfuron methyl herbicides like MSF600 have a slow kill time.
G-360 GLYPHOSATE – 1L/100L by handgun or 10ml/10L by knapsack, plus SprayWetter penetrant at 100ml/100L. (If using G-540 GLYPHOSATE, then use 700ml/100L, or 8ml/10L)

The choice of spray treatments depends on the circumstances; TRICLO Herbicide and GrassMate are grass-friendly while MSF600 and G-360 GLYPHOSATE are not. In most cases that’s unlikely to matter, and the choice can be made on the basis of which product is on hand

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