When does Japanese honeysuckle bloom in North Carolina?

Most often in September. Across 229 dated, research-grade observations of Lonicera japonica in North Carolina, the flowering season runs roughly May to September.

Peak September In flower 229 Examined 423 State North Carolina

Flowering 229 in flower of 423 examined

46%

82%

71%

76%

71%

83%

50%

15%

Proportion of examined Lonicera japonica in North Carolina in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	4	too few examined
Feb	0	9	0%	0% to 30%
Mar	1	38	3%	0% to 14%
Apr	57	123	46%	38% to 55%
May	83	101	82%	74% to 88%
Jun	20	28	71%	53% to 85%
Jul	16	21	76%	55% to 89%
Aug	12	17	71%	47% to 87%
Sep	24	29	83%	65% to 92%
Oct	13	26	50%	32% to 68%
Nov	3	20	15%	5% to 36%
Dec	0	7	0%	0% to 35%

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Lonicera japonica in North Carolina observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 229 of 423 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in North Carolina found Lonicera japonica in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in North Carolina, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Lonicera japonica

Japanese honeysuckle

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in North Carolina. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.