Cape honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis) attracts humming birds to your yard when it’s in bloom. This pest-tolerant evergreen requires little maintenance and makes it easy to landscape the marginal places on your property. You can prune cape honeysuckle into a shrub or let it grow naturally as a large vine in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9b through 11a.
Gardeners prize cape honeysuckle for its vividly colored flowers and evergreen foliage. Expect clusters of tubular flowers 2 inches long in hues of orange, pink or yellow to blossom in fall and winter. The slightly glossy, pinnately compound, green leaves grow as five- to seven-toothed leaflets about 2 inches long. It grows up to 12 feet tall as a round-shaped shrub or can spread or meander horizontally 25 feet or more as a vine. The cultivar determines the flower color with “Aurea” giving golden yellow flowers, “Coccinea” producing scarlet flowers and “Salmonea” bearing pink to orange flowers.
Cape honeysuckle is easy to grow, making it ideal for novice or expert gardeners. This plant prefers a site with full sun but tolerates light shade. It likes moist, but well-drained, clay, loamy or sandy soil with any pH. Cape honeysuckle tolerates moderate drought once established, but grows best with a deep watering once per week. Temperatures of 28 degrees Fahrenheit and below damage branches and may kill the aboveground portion of the plant. Luckily, cape honeysuckle quickly recovers when the weather warms.
In the Landscape
Cape honeysuckle is an ideal plant for places on your property that seem difficult to landscape. It flourishes on steep slopes, tolerates heat, thrives in windy spots and actually prefers poor soil. You can plant it as a border, hedge or a standalone specimen. With encouragement, this quasi-climber decorates fences, adorns arched garden and adds a tropical effect by the pool. For optimal appearance, remove dead branches occasionally.
Cape honeysuckle is unlikely to attract pests but may be sensitive to mineral deficiencies or nutrient and mineral excesses. Poor root growth is the typical culprit for mineral deficiencies, which commonly cause leaf discoloration. Common causes of deficiencies include waterlogged soil and nematodes. To avoid nutrient and mineral excesses in your cape honeysuckle, provide good drainage and avoid applying herbicides.
- University of California Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources: Light Up the Fall
- National Gardening Association: Tecomaria Capensis
- University of California, Davis, Integrated Pest Management: Cape honeysuckle -- Tecomaria Capensis
- North Carolina State University Department of Horticulture: Tecomaria Capensis
- University of Arizona Pima County Cooperative Extension: Tecomaria Capensis
- University of California, Davis, Integrated Pest Management: Nutrient and Mineral Excesses
- University of California, Davis, Integrated Pest Management: Mineral Deficiencies