Haskap or Honeyberry - Lonicera caerulea
Intro
Haskap berries or Honeyberries are a hardy, almost maintenance free berry shrub belonging to the honeysuckle family for your garden. The fruit almost looks like an oblong blueberry and will vary in flavour to sweet raspberry all the way to sour huckleberry depending on the variety and your ability to tell when they are ripe. They are very high in Anthocyanins and other vitamins and can be eaten fresh, or used in jams, pies and even as a flavouring in liqueurs.
History
Haskap berries were known for centuries among the First Peoples of Russia, China and Japan and were an important wild source of food and medicine. They have only recently been the subject of plant breeding and cultivation in the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, followed by Japan in the 1970’s.
Growing
This drama free shrub appreciates average soil with fairly good drainage in a mostly sunny position. It can handle just about anything though and depending on the variety will maintain it’s height and shape as if it was pruned!
Pollination
The only thing you have to keep in mind is that it does take as least 2 different unrelated plants to produce fruit. Honey Bee and Berry Blue are usually the plants we recommend as pollinator plants to work with most of the others such as Borealis, Svetlana, Tundra etc.
Haskaps will produce tons of small simple flowers that are well loved by many different native bees. If you have the right plant partner they will be followed by many oblong blue berries in late spring/early summer! Keep in mind the berries tend to sit inside the leaves and are almost camouflaged so there is a bit of a learning curve but they are great producers of berries once you know where to look! The berries will be ripe when both the outside and the inside are blue with the Japanese varieties.
Pruning
Pruning on these shrubs is minimal and can be done in winter to thin out and maintain a more open and less congested shrub which makes picking much, much easier!!