Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Tatarian honeysuckle is generally rated fire resistant, although one eastern Firewise program rates it At Risk.
Three of four assessments favor the shrub. Virginia Cooperative Extension gives it an L, the least flammable band on its three-point scale. For defensible-space zones 1 and 2, Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service recommend plants scoring 8, 9 or 10. Tatarian honeysuckle qualifies with an ignitability score of 8 out of 10. FireSmart BC calls it an approved fire-resistant plant, though the organization also flags it as needing more research.
The sources use different rating systems and address different regions. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs place Tatarian honeysuckle in their At Risk (3) category, one of four ratings. That finding does not erase the favorable ratings, but it does caution against treating the shrub’s classification as universal across climates and assessment methods.
Tatarian honeysuckle is very invasive in north central states. It has been introduced in 37 states, escaped cultivation in some areas, and is flagged as invasive in two jurisdictions. Fire resistance may favor it on one landscaping question, but its invasive behavior can still make it a poor planting choice.
Form
shrub
Mature height
~10 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
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 AK, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Introduced / established
37 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
6 legal-list records; the Place chip matches exact scope.
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
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 prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Lonicera tatarica · exact match.
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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 42814, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
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.
