Maintaining honeysuckle groundcover....

Our backyard has two large terraced levels. The top level is approx. 10x80 ft and all planted in honeysuckle. Above it are huge oak trees whose leaves fall onto the honeysuckle. It is a NIGHTMARE to clean out the leaves and acorns and make it look presentable from our neighbors yard up above us!!!

How do you suggest we keep this area manicured??? Should we cut the vines back each year?

Is it tooooo late today, 4/22/2008, to prune them back? We live in Kansas. I hate to remove all the honesuckle since it would be quite expensive to plant something else due to the size of the area. Any ideas would be appreciated. I need your HELP!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks in advance!!! Pruning tips would be appreciated also.

Doug says, you're using honeysuckle vine as a ground cover. Interesting idea. But you've created a maintenance nightmare because the falling leaves fall onto the plants and cover them up. And the twining and non-ground hugging nature of the vine traps the leaves.

I guess I'd remove them in the fall. I'd rake mercilessly and not worry about damaging the honeysuckle (because you can't for the most part). This isn't going to be a pleasant nor easy job I can understand that.

I appreciate it will be tough but honeysuckle will regrow quite quickly from any damage you do in the fall. You can even cut it back to the ground and it will regrow. Not quite as fast as you're going to like for a spring show or cover in that area though. It will take till mid-summer to regrow and recover the area. So yes, you can chop it back to ground level now but you're going to have a bare area there till it regrows in midsummer.

I guess this is why honeysuckle is rarely used as a groundcover because it will vine and wander trapping leaves and becoming a maintenance mess.

And sometimes, it is far easier to bite the bullet when you know this and rip out the problem - installing something that is designed to take this kind of leaf problem and either survive the raking or quickly cover it up in the fall.

But do I have a quick and easy solution for you? Sorry, no. The nature of the plant is working against you and unless you can like the look of the heavily pruned plant and it regrows fast enough for you, then you're stuck with what you have or changing it.

Let me suggest a test... Cut it back far enough to easily remove the leaves. Perhaps not all the way to the ground but enough to make working in the area much easier. Remove all the leaves or chop them all up with a lawn mower and leave the entire leaf haul there for organic matter. (Compost the leaves in any case) Then allow the honeysuckle to regrow.

You're going to see if it regrows fast enough for you very quickly but you are going to have bare ground or leaf covered ground there. You'll see if this is a solution or whether you're going to have to rip it out and plant something else.

But I'm not aware of any "system" of growing that will make this honeysuckle into a tame groundcover plant. Sorry.