This vine does best in cool coastal full or half day sun or in light shade with regular to occasional watering. It is seaside tolerant and cold hardy to about 15° F. This is a very attractive vine with a much softer appearance than the more commonly used Lonicera japonica 'Halliana'.

Lonicera confusa grows wild in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of China, as well as in Nepal and Vietnam. The name for the genus honors Adam Lonicer, a 16th century German mathematician, physician and botanist and the specific epithet means "disordered" or "confused" and perhaps references the name for the plant as some (such as in the Kew database) consider this species to be a synonym of L. japonica while many others considered the two species to be distinct and it certainly is quite different from the only Lonicera japonica we see in the nursery trade, which is the variety a href="plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=1013" target="_blank">Lonicera japonica 'Halliana'.

Our thanks to Landscape Architect Sydney Baumgartner for introducing us to this nice plant in the late 1980s - we have grown it on and off at the nursery since 1991 and we also grow the large Giant Burmese Honeysuckle Lonicera hildebrandiana. 

The information displayed on this page about Lonicera confusa is based on the research we conducted about it in our nursery horticultural library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include some of our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.