Last June, after reading a forum posting from the UBC Hortline I purchased a Lonicera periclymenum "Graham Thomas" and an evergreen Lonicera henryi to grow together up and along an arbour above my north facing garage door. They are planted in the ground in a relatively narrow bed just around the corner from the garage door itself. Both did well but the L. henryi is especially vigorous with many long branches and side branches as shown in the attached photos. I want to train both plants over to the corner, up the nearby 6X6 post and along the top structure. For the L. henryi my questions are: How many "main" vertical stems I should keep (there are lots, some already twined together)? Should some or all of the lower side branches be removed or shortened? Can I prune it now? I used plastic stakes to direct the plant towards the post, is there a better or more attractive method? Should I try to wind it around the post, or tie it to the post? With the wisteria I had there before, twining around turned out to be a big mistake as it just got tighter and damaged both the stem and the post. For the L. 'Graham Thomas' (shown in bottom r of middle photo) my questions are: How do I encourage it to grow taller rather than bushing out? Do I need to worry about it being smothered by the l. henryi?
