British Columbia: Cross polinator for Honeyberry shrubs

After two years of not seeing fruit on my Honeyberry shrub I realized I needed a cross pollinator Honeyberry. I bought my plant at David Hunter and wonder if these three options sold there would be good cross pollination options. Honeyberry 'Blue Moon', Honeyberry 'Blue Pacific', Honeyberry 'Blue Velvet' or are there others that would be better?

Thanks
jamie

 

Blue Velvet is a good pollinator for Blue Moon.

 

Which brings up the point that you might need to know which variety you have right now.

 

Ah yes, I believe it is the Blue Moon variety. Did a bit of a wiki search and could not identify it for sure but I know its one of the three listed above. I suppose the worst that could happen is no or poor pollination? Perhaps other honeysuckles could also help in pollination?

Thanks for your direction.
jamie

 

If you have the space plant the whole set. Probably need a fair number of them to get any kind of quantity of fruit anyway.

 

Good information. At 2m in height, I could fit perhaps two more at least in the yard. My mason bees should pollinate anything within a few hundred meters. Thanks!

 

I've got 'Blue Moon', 'Blue Velvet' and 'Blue Pacific' growing as single shrubs, within 10 feet of one another, and get good amounts of fruit each year. Unfortunately, I find little worth recommending in the flavour of the honeyberry: mostly sour, and far inferior to a blueberry. Still, it's a pretty shrub, with nice yellow flowers, but the term 'honeyberry' (a reference to 'honeysuckle' no doubt) conjures up an expectation of delectability that simply isn't there. Still, a lot of people seem to like 'em...

 

Ahh, good to know. Will be sure to add some honey when baking those honeyberry pies! It will be nice to finally see the flowers. Thanks.

 

Good Morning folks,
Honeyberry is a species of Honeysuckle. The "honey" refers to the sweet nectar not the berries. The varieties mentioned on this forum refer to those that originated from Russia. Apparently, those lines from Japan are superior. The two recent releases, Borealis and Tundra are supposed to be better and they are known as Haskap to differentiate them from the Russian lines. I have not tasted any Haskap and cannot comment on their flavor. I agree with Woodschmoe on the Russian varieties.
Peace
Thean

 

Thanks Thean,
This information on the Haskap varieties is good. I will check with a local horticulturalist to see if they have crossed them with the Russian varieties. So far, I have only found the varieties mentioned previously here in the lower mainland of BC but its good incentive to search a little wider.
jamie

 

I have 2 'Honey Sweet' and 1 'Wild Honey' growing in containers for a couple of years now. I would not call them sour although they are not very sweet. In a way they are like raspberries in that you have to watch for the bad ones that taste awful. I agree blueberries are much better. There are plenty of varieties from Oregon State University and the University of Saskatchewan that I would like to try. Here is there list of propagators in Canada and the US. http://www.fruit.usask.ca/propagators.html
This site has a lot of information on growing haskap. http://northwoodsgarden.blogspot.com/p/haskap-links.html

 

These are good sites and good information. Thanks!

 

>The two recent releases, Borealis<

Unless a change in the code I read about (via a secondary source) recently now permits it garden forms named after 1959 are not supposed to have Latin cultivar names.

 

One could argue that the word "borealis" has been adopted into the English language, and possibly other modern languages. Not sure if that would affect the rules for the application of this code.

 

If they're still going with the 1959 cutoff borealis would surely not be acceptable. The one comment I've seen indicated there had been some sort of acquiescing to the fact that originators of new cultivars have so often not played along, instead continued to come out with new Latin cultivar names long after 1959. I have not checked on the latest rules myself.

 

If they're patented the nomenclature rules wouldn't apply, as Borealis would be a trade designation and not the cultivar name. (Which often is gibberish, f. ex. Clematis Harlow Carr 'Evipo004'.)

 

'Borealis' is being used as a cultivar name.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...o_IfBI&sig=AHIEtbTKtjFGASgbJqvf4ax-esknUV4C7w

 

You were right, 'Borealis' is the cultivar name according to the PBR application.

 

Your link shows 'Borealis' as a replacement for 'Aurora'. That's too bad - if the code now permits this - as not having Latin cultivar names was a good idea. For instance, as it is some people will wonder when they first encounter the cultivar name fashioned 'Borealis' if it was instead supposed to be a botanical designation such as a forma, varietas or subspecies borealis.

 

Pertinent web page still shows the same general response to Latin cultivar names. Don't know how the second sentence might affect this particular matter.

Since 1959, new cultivar epithets must be in a language other than Latin and they must be unique within the so-called denomination class which is usually the genus. A few groups have special denomination classes and these may be found listed in Appendix III of the Code

http://www.ishs.org/sci/icraname.htm

 

Ok, I see a possibility as to why borealis is acceptable but Aurora is not. The term aurora borealis was coined by a Frenchman in 1621. Aurora, from the Roman goddess of dawn is obviously latin, but borealis is derived from the ancient Greek god of the north wind, Boreas. wikipedia link

Borealis does not seem to actually be a latin word, and was presumably therefore deemed a suitable replacement when Aurora was seen to not be allowable according to the code.

 

When we consider what is called botanical Latin borealis is part of the vocabulary.

 

Point taken Ron, but I find it hard to see any other reasons why borealis was deemed acceptable and aurora was not. I have simply suggested two possibilities of how they could have side-stepped the cultivar naming conventions. First, borealis might be considered an accepted word in certain modern languages as well as botanical latin, and second it can be argued it is not a true (historical) Latin word. I may be way off base but it seems strange that one actual Latin name was not accepted, but another Latin sounding name was.

I agree with the suggested naming conventions btw, I am just suggesting possibilities as to why this name has got around them. (If the introducers were simply ignoring the code entirely, why change from the original designation 'Aurora'?)

 

> If the introducers were simply ignoring the code entirely, why change from the original designation 'Aurora'?

There's already a Lonicera named aurora; Lonicera korolkowi (Stapf) var. aurora (Koehne).

Ron's point is valid, there's some 450 species of plants using borealis, and another 200 using the species epithet boreale. Maybe the Canadian PBR authority simply doesn't know the rules, or follow different rules than those set in the ICNCP - too many chefs, etc.

 

If I was to put my pedantic hat on, I could say why would they pay attention to one part of the revised code (no duplication of cultivar or var name within the genus level, rather than the previously accepted species level) and ignore the other part (no Latin)?

For example:
Acer palmatum 'Aureum'
A. cappadocicum 'Aureum'
A. shirasawanum (formerly A. japonicum) 'Aureum'

All pre 1959 obviously, but all considered ok at the time and still accepted despite the duplication within the genus. You wouldn't name a new Acer cultivar 'Aureum' but there would be two reasons why not, the duplication and the Latin.

Fair point, but if introducers of plants are still ignoring the ICNCP blatantly then there is not much point in having the guidelines.

I am not defending these people for introducing a cultivar with a latin type name, just trying to explore possibilities as to why they might consider the name an exception to the rule, rather than simply believing they didn't know about the rules, or knew and ignored them.

I am still tempted to believe that if a word can be proven to exist independently in a modern language it might be considered acceptable for a cultivar name. Borealis is used as a botanical Latin term, i am not disputing that, but the word also appears in common usage and is not derived from a word that is originally Latin.