Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Southern bush honeysuckle is rated fire resistant, with three eastern firewise sources pointing in the same favorable direction.
Virginia Cooperative Extension gives the shrub an “L” flammability rating, the low end of its three-point scale, and notes that it tolerates exposed sites. A guide compiled by Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia agencies calls it relatively resistant to fire and says listed plants resist wildfire ignition more strongly; it also notes tolerance of exposed sites. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs rate it “Moderately Firewise,” a 2 on their four-point scale, one step below their highest category. These scales are not identical, but none places the plant among the more flammable choices.
A southeastern U.S. native, southern bush honeysuckle is a shrub in the honeysuckle family. Its mature height is about five feet, and it is hardy to USDA zone 5a. Those traits describe where it belongs and grows, while the favorable fire ratings address its landscape use.
The practical conclusion is reassuring but measured: southern bush honeysuckle has consistent support as a fire-resistant plant, although that verdict rests on limited primary evidence. The agencies agree on the direction, while differing in whether they call it low-flammability, relatively resistant, or moderately Firewise.
Form
shrub
Mature height
~5 ft
Rated in
Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
NJ; partial normalized coverage
New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, DC, DE, GA, MD, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, TN, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, GA, NC, SC, TN.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Listed as Diervilla sessilifolia (Southern Bush-Honeysuckle). The source says listed species exhibit stronger resistance to ignition by wildfires. Source comments: Tolerates exposed sites
