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| My wisteria tree, is still a vine, simply trained as a tree. This takes an incredible amount of heavy pruning two or three times a year, with whips and stems often 4 or 5 feet long being removed in mid-summer, autumn and a bit in the early spring. With such care, even this young vine produces a prodigious amount of flowers. |
Few plants can compare with the romance of wisteria. Even the name conjurs up romance - of palaces with dripping, violet-tinted vines cascading like waterfalls in a Disney animated film. For gardeners who are more savvy, the vine can cause dread and fear, in much the same way that a timber bamboo can, as few plants can be as invasive as an untamed wisteria, out of control and overtaking every tree and shrub in its path.
Most vines can be challenging, some gardeners will tell you to avoid wisteria, for it can be weedy, invasive even, but the truth is all vines can be invasive, it's in their nature to be aggressive, spinning and twining their stems in a desperate effort to reach a position where they can take advantage of light. Vines are botanically designed to climb, through bushes, scrub and trees, aggressively trying to get above any competitive foliage.
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| Japanese strains are supposed to be more fragrant than Chinese forms, but I think this is all silly, for I have some Japanese strains that have hardly no scent, such as this large-flowered violet form, while some Chinese forms smell exactly like orange blossoms. |
Even though Wisteria can be extremely invasive, even seeding in woodlands threatening native species, but at the same time, it's a vine which has charmed us, captured in artwork and in iconic old gardens in Italy and France, many who start gardening dream of someday having a wisteria vine in full, cascading bloom. They present the ultimate in romantic garden displays, Hollywood frequently drapes pergolas and trellis' with silk wisteria (fooling only a few of us when we spot it in a film), and classic artisans such as Tiffany capture the iconic image of twining wisteria in stained glass lampshades and in windows. But how can a home gardener tame a wisteria vine, and then, once tamed, how can one get a wisteria to bloom? For we've all heard about their fussy behavior through legend and lore. I, am about to set things straight.
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| Wisteria macrobotrys has long, drooping trusses, which when completely open, can make my fence look like a waterfall of cascading color. |
My collection of wisteria varieties is growing, but I still have room for more, the problem I have with wisteria is not getting them to bloom, but is simply trying to find reliable and named selections that are accurately true to name ( as they cannot be raised from seed, unless one wants a lesser throw-back). Wisteria deserves a second look by us gardeners. If you have a fence, a pergola or even a space where you can train one into a tree form, a wisteria vine can be very rewarding. Even if you only have room for a large tub, a trained vine in a container -even as a bonsai, can make for a very impressive plant. The trick with wisteria is not in fertilizing ( they they rarely bloom if presented with rich soil) - success comes with proper pruning. Wisteria must be pruned back fearlessly, and hard - ideally once in July, cutting all whips and stems back to the main trunk, leaving a foot or so of stem which can be allowed to form buds for the following year, and a second pruning in early spring, or late winter - just before the vines start to grow, and flower buds begin to swell.
I keep 5 selections of both Japanese selections, and Chinese forms. One really never knows what one has when it comes to wisteria, as seed raised strains are far more prevalent than clones. The name wisteria has a story behind it too - the genus should have be named Wistaria, and not Wisteria, as it was named in honor of Professor Caspar Wistar of the University of Pennsylvania, but an unfortunate misspelling while registering the genus has for ever kept the name Wisteria. Regardless of misspelling gripes and muddled genealogy, there are today countless strains and selections once one starts looking, and each has its qualities, be it fragrance, color or floral quality. Some varieties have very long trusses, nearly 2 feet long as in W. macrobotrys, others, particularly some of the newer Japanese floribundas have large, individual flowers on short trusses. Another interesting fun fact is that reportedly the Chinese varieties have stems which twine clockwise, whilst Japanese forms twine in a counter clockwise manner. I have never tested this, but it's legend in many gardening books, and I would love to hear more about why, and if it is actually a true fact.
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| This white Chinese wisteria, has an incredibly rich scent which drifts across the entire garden - it smells like a lemon tree in full bloom. It's more tender than any other variety I have, but after 12 years, it still produces flowers each spring, unless we have a very cold winter. It has never had so many flowers as it does this year. |
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| There are pink, rose, reddish mauve, violet and white forms of Wisteria, all with varied lengths of trusses. The choices selections tend to bloom before the foliage emerges, others, just as the foliage opens, and the more wild forms, bloom after the foliage has unfurled. |
If you are interested in growing wisteria, I just ask you to buy named varieties, and not allow someone to pass on a vine to you, as it most likely will be seed raised, which will result only in disappointment. If you are going to bother pruning and training a vine that can live well over a century, you might as well spend that effort on a choice variety.
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| My trained wisteria tree, is not really a tree, but simply a young vine of a particularly large flowered form, pruned hard each year, which helps to force the vine into bloom. After ten years or so, the stem will be strong enough to stand alone, without a stake or rope to keep it erect. |
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| A Japanese white form, called White Snake, or Shiro Naga Fuji, has spectacular white blossoms. I keep this one trimmed short, it is almost free standing in the garden, yet it rarely twines at all, a Japanese maple helps to prop it up. That said, if I missed just one year of pruning any wisteria, my garden would be overrun. |
I have many fond memories of wisteria as a child. In the woods behind out house, our neighbor allowed long wisteria vines to clamber up into tall ash trees, which would transform into bloom in May with long, purple blossoms making what could have been a boring street tree to suddenly become a giant wisteria tree, to memories of Nice, and Cannes in France, where like many of the coastal villages on the Cote d'Azur, wisteria arbors come into bloom over walkways in public parks and gardens. I Nice, I remember a long walk under such an arbor where steel archways and long wires connecting each one transformed into a violet tunnel one spring.
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