# Mountain Fly Honeysuckle (Lonicera villosa)

> A small native shrub of northern bogs and wet woods, a wild relative of the haskap, with paired pale yellow flowers and edible blue berries.

Also called Lonicera caerulea var. villosa. Category: Native Shrubs. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/mountain-fly-honeysuckle/

![Mountain fly honeysuckle (Lonicera villosa) flowering branches with paired pale flowers, a 1911 photograph](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/mountain-fly-honeysuckle-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Edwin Hale Lincoln, Public domain · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A30._Lonicera_caerulea%2C_blue%2C_or_mountain_fly-honeysuckle_-_DPLA_-_b9703d5112bd44f3c830fc209fea709b.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 1 to 5 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 3 to 6
- Grows wild in: The forest understory, swamps and wet flats
- Native range: 12 states, north and west to [Minnesota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MN) and south to [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH) ([Connecticut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=CT), [Maine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ME), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [Michigan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MI), [Minnesota](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MN), [New Hampshire](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NH), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [Rhode Island](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=RI), [Vermont](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VT) and [Wisconsin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WI))
- Sun: Part, Full, Shade
- Soil moisture: Wet, Average
- Growth rate: Slow
- Flowers: May to June
- Fruit: Berries, June to August
- First crop: 3 to 5 years
- Mature spread: 5 ft
- Traits: Edible, Wildlife value, Tolerates wet soil, Tolerates shade
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Mountain fly honeysuckle is a small native shrub of northern bogs, fens and wet woods. Botanists often treat it as a North American variety of the haskap, or honeyberry, the blue honeysuckle grown for fruit. Unlike American fly honeysuckle, whose paired berries stay separate and turn red, each pair of its flowers grows into a single blue berry. It is seldom sold, since its wild stands are small and sparse. Plant it at the wet edge of a pond or in a bog garden, where it can stay low and spread slowly.

## Size, growth and what to expect

It grows slowly, 6 inches to a foot a year in our growth estimator, and in one trial in pots it reached a quarter of the height of the haskap grown beside it. It makes a compact shrub 1 to 5 feet tall, with peeling, coppery bark on older stems. It wants a cool, moist site and is a plant for northern gardens.

Pairs of pale yellow, funnel-shaped flowers, a third to half an inch long, hang from the leaf axils in May and June. Each pair grows into one oblong blue berry about three eighths of an inch long, dusted with a waxy bloom, ripening from early summer into August. The berries come in small numbers, and birds eat them.

It grows wild across Canada from Labrador and Newfoundland west to Alberta, and south into New England, New York, Pennsylvania and the Great Lakes states. Its home is bogs, fens, swamps and wet woods. Pennsylvania lists it as endangered, and it is gone from Ohio.

## How to grow Mountain Fly Honeysuckle

Mountain fly honeysuckle grows in part shade, sun or shade, and it does best in the dappled shade of a cool, moist garden. It wants ground that stays moist or wet, such as a bog, a fen or the edge of a pond, and it takes rocky or peaty soil. Set plants 3 feet apart and keep them 3 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Clean the seed from the blue berries and sow it outdoors in fall, a quarter inch deep. For a spring sowing, chill the seed damp in the refrigerator for two to three months first. Softwood cuttings taken in late June root well.

Water whenever the soil starts to dry through the first two summers. Stems that touch the ground may root, so a plant slowly widens into a patch.

Its relative the haskap sets few berries with its own pollen and far more with pollen from another plant, so plant two or more from different parents for fruit. Bumble bees work the flowers. The berries are edible but tart, and birds take them too.

## Sources

- [Hayes, D. J. 2018. Propagation of the Native North American Shrub Lonicera villosa and Trait Comparisons with Nonnative Congeneric Taxa. M.S. thesis, University of Maine](https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/2915)
- [Minnesota Wildflowers: Lonicera villosa, mountain fly honeysuckle](https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/mountain-fly-honeysuckle)
- [Go Botany, Native Plant Trust: Lonicera villosa](https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/lonicera/villosa/)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Lonicera villosa](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=LOVI)
- [Penn State Extension: Honeysuckle Species in Pennsylvania (Marquesen, updated March 10, 2025)](https://extension.psu.edu/honeysuckle-species-in-pennsylvania)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Lonicera chapter (Dubois and Blazich)](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Lonicera.pdf)
- [Bożek, M. 2012. The Effect of Pollinating Insects on Fruiting of Two Cultivars of Lonicera caerulea L. Journal of Apicultural Science 56(2)](https://doi.org/10.2478/v10289-012-0018-6)
- [USDA NRCS PLANTS Database: Lonicera villosa](https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/LOVI)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Lonicera villosa, Mountain Fly-honeysuckle](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.136923/Lonicera_villosa)
- [Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program: Species and Natural Features List, updated June 2026](https://www.naturalheritage.state.pa.us/Species.aspx)
- [Ohio Department of Natural Resources: Rare Native Ohio Plants, 2024-25 Status List](https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/odnr/natural-areas/2024-25_Ohio_Rare_Native_Plants_Status_List_FINAL_draft.pdf)
- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Lonicera spp., bush honeysuckles (Amur, Morrow's, Tatarian and showy fly honeysuckle), Munger 2005](https://research.fs.usda.gov/feis/species-reviews/lonspp)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [How fast every tree and shrub we grow gets tall: growth rate, A to Z](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/growth-rates/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)

## Related

- Other honeysuckles (Lonicera) we grow: [American Fly Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-fly-honeysuckle/index.html.md), [Grape Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/grape-honeysuckle/index.html.md), [Hairy Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/hairy-honeysuckle/index.html.md), [Limber Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/limber-honeysuckle/index.html.md), [Trumpet Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/trumpet-honeysuckle/index.html.md), [Yellow Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/yellow-honeysuckle/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [Balsam Fir](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/balsam-fir/index.html.md), [Northern White Cedar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/northern-white-cedar/index.html.md) and [Yellow Birch](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/yellow-birch/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Mountain Fly Honeysuckle, add ?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 3, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle&zone=3&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Mountain Fly Honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Mountain Fly Honeysuckle as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Mountain Fly Honeysuckle is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Mountain Fly Honeysuckle needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 2 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=mountain-fly-honeysuckle:2
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Mountain Fly Honeysuckle where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Mountain Fly Honeysuckle goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=mountain-fly-honeysuckle&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Mountain Fly Honeysuckle flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=mountain-fly-honeysuckle