Having said all of this, I would not trade my wisteria for anything. No other vine can match the beauty and fragrance of the flowers, and the gnarled vines wrapped around the arbor pillars look magnificent in winter. There are two species of wisteria typically available at local nurseries. Wisteria sinensis is the Chinese wisteria. The showy, footlong flowers open all at once before the leaves emerge, putting on quite a show.
My personal favorite is Wisteria floribunda , or Japanese wisteria, because the blossoms racemes are so long the record-holder is almost 6 feet.
Right after planting, remove all but three vigorous stems, and twist them around the support that the vines will climb. These vines will form the framework, and must be tied in to hold them in place as they climb. Be ruthless at removing all other growth.
Never fight Mother Nature by trying to force the vines to twist in a direction other than the one that they naturally grow. Feeding your wisteria with a generous helping of rose fertiliser rich in flower-promoting potassium and magnesium every March will help to promote regular flowering and healthy growth. If your wisteria has been pruned and fed and grown on a sunny wall and still refuses to flower after three or four years, give it up as a bad job, haul it out and plant a grafted variety that will make up for lost time.
Gateway to paradise: the wisteria-clad entrance to Dunsborough Park at Ripley, Surrey. Of the many varieties available, I particularly favour the old favourite Macrobotrys, which has flower trails that can be about 2ft long.
The white varieties are wonderfully classy and, in the right situation, can be as spectacular as those of lilac purple. I would never shun the plain W. Growing wisteria in pots and containers is seldom successful, as the plants are so greedy when it comes to food and water. It will need some support, but I remember massive free-standing specimens at Kew Gardens when I was a student there and, even then, they were a good century in age.
Alan Titchmarsh talks about his love of bulbs, which ones not to bother with, and the difference between a gardener. Garden designer Anthony Noel extols the virtues of floral arches that delight the senses. This Wisteria was newly planted in and within 7 years had reached a height of 3.
This is a testament to the vigorous nature of Wisteria and the need for longer and longer ladders to prune it. Hard to image this tiny plant grew to cover a whole wall of a house in 10 years. Wisteria is best purchased as a grafted plant. You are likely to have problems with any plant grown from seed which may be cheaper, but it may take a very long time to flower, as in more than a decade.
You can spot a grafted plant as there is a bulge in the stem just above soil level in the plant pot. When planting a new Wisteria water it well and ensure that it does not dry out in the early stages. Once established it will look after itself, even in the drought of I did not water the wisteria and it has been fine.
Wisteria is fully hardy, although the emerging flowers racemes can be damaged by frost see below which means a sheltered spot is best. Wisteria are usually easy to establish, fast growing and need a lot of space, and time.
Wisteria can be grown as a standard if space is limited which will involve careful pruning. Wisteria can be grown in a container but with varying degrees of success.
Recently a friend asked me for advice about growing a Wisteria in a container as the Wisteria had failed to flower. I suggested removing it from the container and replanting in a sunny spot, and the following spring it flowered beautifully. Given the problems which can occur getting Wisteria to flower growing it in a container can just add a layer of difficulty. It also makes the roots more prone to water logging which will adversely affect Wisteria. To ensure Wisteria flowers every year correct pruning is key.
Unless Wisteria is pruned hard, it will put energy into vigorous leaf growth at the expense of flowers, and so the Wisteria will not flower or produce less flowers. Wisteria is vigorous and if not pruned regularly it will very quickly become rampant and outgrow its allotted space. In addition, plants need to be trained horizontally which aids flowering.
We often think Pruning Wisteria is tricky, but its helpful to know that Wisteria is a very vigorous climbing plant and you would be hard pushed to kill it by pruning. The only risk when pruning a Wisteria is to cut into the hard wood main frame of the plant. In the winter prune, you are shortening the spurs and in the summer prune removing leafy growth; two different types of pruning. In some ways the winter prune is easier because you can see the framework of the Wisteria.
Winter pruning is best done in February, on a mild day, and you will need ladders to access all of the plant. The summer pruning is just as essential and it is best to prune hard. The purpose of the summer prune is to restrict, and cut back the vigorous growth, so the plant will throw out new flower shoots in the spring.
Taking into account the main framework, and where you want the plant to grow, cut back and prune hard the long wippy soft growth to about 15cmc 6" Leave unpruned that which is needed for the framework. You may need to cut off a lot of the long wippy growth and also cut off all laterals which appear at the base of the plant.
These are shoots being thrown out at the base and remove all. Pruning twice per year is essential for flowering and as the plant grows its high maintenance, in both senses. Thanks to Helen Yemm writing in her excellent gardening column who remarked on the staining caused by Wisteria sap.
It leaves brown marks on your clothes which nothing will shift. This makes it most important to be wearing your oldest gardening scruffs for this job. A final small point on the time and maintenance required by Wisteria, it drops a lot of leaves in November and December, see image left, which also takes some maintenance clearing them up.
If after trying everything, pruning twice a year for a year or so, watering and feeding it still will not flower consider abandoning it and buying another.
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