Honeysuckle

It is amazing to me how difficult it is to kill honeysuckle. Our church has an outdoor worship area that was carved out by our youth group several years ago from an area overgrown with honeysuckle. Last year, the current youth group and several church members spent time cutting the honeysuckle back in order to contain it. Yesterday, Mary and I went down to this same area to check on how it was doing and spent a good hour pulling and cutting back all the new honeysuckle starts from last years trimmings. The idea is to keep the area open and plant native bushes and plants to eventually naturalize the area and win the war against the honeysuckle. We planted some things last year but they did not do well because of the drought we had. This year, we are trying again. We started with 2 rhododendrum bushes. We hope to add more as well as some native plants. Time will tell whether we win the war over the ever advancing honeysuckle. Wish us luck!