Thank you for creating this forum. I am a long-time lurker, first-time poster.
I purchased a 10-acres property in central Illinois. Most of it is flood plain forest, with 3 acres of a fruit orchard. Part of it gets regularly flooded in spring, early summer, lasting a few days underwater. It has mature apple, pear, plum and peach trees. Soil is a silty clay loam.
I am interested in growing honeyberries. I purchased a few bushes from Stark Bros this spring, planted them with all the care. They get about 6 hours of sun and then dappled shade. They started well, looked healthy on arrival. But throughout the summer they have slowly lost most of the leaves and not grown at all.
Is it the soil? the shade? Does anyone have experience growing honeyberries in central Illinois? I’d appreciate any recommendations regarding care and varieties that do well.
You might post some pictures of the leaves and see if it’s a disease issue. If you could post pictures of healthy leaves, mildly affected leaves, and leaves that are about to drop maybe someone could identify what the issue is. You maybe limited to one picture per post since you don’t have many posts yet. It would also be helpful if you had a picture of the entire bush.
I am in Central Illinois as well on the zone 5/6 border. I don’t grow honeyberries so I am going to be of limited help.
first welcome to the site Ana. im in z4a and every late summer my honeyberries go through this. its especially bad when theyre young or during hot dry weather. they are a cold weather plant that basically goes into survival mode if it stays above 80 f for a period of time. last year we had a hot dry summer and most of my bushes lost their leaves or their leaves turned yellow/ brown. as soon as it cooled they perked up a little but still looked horrible but they came back fine this spring… give your bushes extra water and a 3-4in layer of mulch around the roots if you havent already. chances are they will come back fine next spring.
I agree with that @steveb4 … it’s quite common here in Kentucky for them to look dead in August and by October have an inch of fresh new growth going into winter.
my auroras are the best off the bush then it would be honeybee then indigo gem/treat. still all great for jams and baking. aurora is the most productive and i plan to add more of it. i put in beauty and beast this spring and have blizzard coming soon. heard good things about them. nothing bothers my honeyberries here. give them some manure in spring and after leaf drop in the fall and they will produce well.
Update for spring 2022:
I planted 5 honeyberry bushes in late spring/early summer. From Stark bros: Cinderella, Blue Moon, Borealis. From Burnt Ridge, Blue Sea. All bushes were under 18" and healthy looking. One Cinderella died shortly after planting. The other 4 survived but did not do much all summer, losing their leaves by August and giving another valiant effort Sep-Nov. This spring, Blue sea started putting out leaves but they wilted and then died. Another one died down to the ground, but it put out some tender new growth. Unfortunately, the tag is lost so I do not know which one it is. Cinderella is doing well, the woody branches survived the winter and now it is adding new growth, it even flowered (not expecting fruit since there was no pollinator around). So far my experience with honeyberries has not been stellar. Maybe it was the very wet summer we had, but I am not impressed with their hardiness. There are willow trees somewhere near, close enough that they block the worst of the midday sun, but not the morning, late afternoon sun. I thought that location would be good for honeyberries since they don’t like hot weather. But now I am wondering if willows produce any allelopathic compounds.
I ordered new bushes from Honeyberry USA. Maxie and Solo, Boreal Blizzard, Beauty, and Honeybee. I don’t want to kill them again, any suggestions?
I have a lot of honeyberries on my property, most of them are doing pretty good, but the oldest one, probably about 6 years old now, does very poorly. It is planted near willows.
willows have a very thick root system that strangles out anything thats close by by out competing it. also hog water. i have a elder i planted at the base of one of my black willows. it hasnt done much in 2 years but has done great in the middle of the yard. so much so i had to kill it off next to one of my cherries because it was stunting it.
The willows that it is planted by are actually basket willows that I keep coppiced. They are probably about 5 yrs old. There is a Viking Aronia and some native plums and a native apricot in the same vicinity and they are all doing much better than the honeyberry, but maybe it is not getting enough sun. I’m thinking of moving it to a sunnier spot this week.
As I understand it, and maybe I don’t(!), honeyberries have a lot of roots near the surface and don’t like competition. So, maybe that’s part of the issue.
Either Blue Moon or Borealis. 1-year-old