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I've got a large walnut tree (Juglans regia), and I am happy with it, I just want to improve further that part of my garden to be more attractive to birds and butterflies.

My idea is to plant a climber that will climb up the walnut, and hopefully cover it (at least partially).

I searched the net, but could not find a similar case.

No need to mention that the climber must be juglone-tolerant.

Is this doable, or even possible at all?

My thoughts are now:

  • lonicera
  • hedera
  • wisteria

This list of juglone-tolerant plants mentions lonicera and wisteria, but not hedera. Another list mentions lonicera only (out of these three).

I will be doing some crown lifting pruning of that walnut next spring, so that more sunlight is available daily for the area at the bottom of the tree.

This is not my walnut tree, but my tree is very similar (age, size, habit...) to the pictured one:

enter image description here What do you think?

VividD
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1 Answers1

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Note that black walnut (Juglans nigra) has the highest level of juglone in all its parts, so that is a significant difference between it and Juglans regia, the common walnut.

This link https://extension.psu.edu/landscaping-and-gardening-around-walnuts-and-other-juglone-producing-plants has plenty of suggestions for trees and shrubs growing around Walnut, including vines - your lonicera is not on the list of juglone tolerant vines, they are Clematis, Wisteria, Vitis and Parthenocissus quinquifolia. (Note: the link you posted doesn't lead anywhere,so I don't know where you got the information about lonicera being juglone tolerant from. Update - see comment above.)

Note that the text body includes a reference to not using mulch containing walnut leaves; this refers to your other post about composting walnut leaves, so what it's saying is, you shouldn't use as mulch anything containing uncomposted parts from walnut - leaves, once composted, will have lost all their juglone content easily within six months. This difference between composted and uncomposted parts, and failure to understand the difference, might account for all the misinformation about walnut mulch on the web...

Bamboo
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