Topic: Wisteria advice needed.

[Gadfium]

Need some input on wisteria!

Someone-who-shall-not-be-named (grrr) decided to revamp the whole garden for 'colour' - despite heavy clay soil, catastrophic ground elder, shaded borders, and lots of pine trees in the borders - yes, that's physically 'in' the borders, folks. Oh, and doesn't know an annual from a perennial; chickweed from aquilegia (groan)... I won't go any further, it's toooooooo painful.

We had a lovely wisteria growing up a single-storey west wall - it got good sun, & also good protection from all northerly Northumberland winter blasts. It was about 10' tall, 20 years old, and bloomed beautifully with oodles of pale purplish blue flowers. It shared the spot with a 15yr old Passiflora, that looked very dodgy each spring, needed loads of dead bits hacked off, and then promptly romped away giving lovely foliage (and flowers) for the whole summer.

The Passiflora was relocated to the tip, not enough 'colour', apparantly; leaving those who discovered the bare wall, shuddering and aghast. Worse followed, the Wisteria was to be 'pruned' because it didn't go in the right direction... we were all flummoxed at this, because it looked great... next thing you know, we go out and find a three foot tall stump. Someone with a saw chopped the specimen off at the kneecaps.

 :'(

Needless to say, it died.

Now that the corpse has been uprooted and hacked out... the-one-who-shall-not-be-named has decided (in hindsight) that another Wisteria should go in its place.

You could weep!

Up at the garden centre, the culprit took one look at the line of Wisterias, and decided it was someone's else's job to pick the 'right' one.  Guess who?

Yup.

I need a little advice here...

I do not have any idea what the original one was... beyond the fact that it had a wealth of purple/blue flowers, didn't have a problem with the nippy weather, and was very happy being restrained in a 2'-3' border along the west wall. I can eliminate all the white-flowered Wisterias, but that still seems to leave a lot of other varieties....

Best guesses? Please.

[saddad]

Unless you were terribly efficient keep an eye out for new growth. OH killed ours by Using Jeyes Fluid on the Patio but one bit came back from the dead, if you see any signs give it a whole bottle of root hormone liquid in a big watering can and keep hoping!
 :'(

[Jill]

and if that fails... buy a plant now from a garden centre that's in flower.  That way you'll know for definite that it will flower next year (unless it dies ;))

My dear departed pa's garden has an absolutely glorious wisteria (piccies to follow). I asked my solicitor whether we could put something about preserving it for posterity in the contract now that we are selling the house, but he just laughed :P  Got to do something to preserve it....Suggestions on a postcard ;D

[saddad]

If you are not moving soon root one of the whippy shoots down into a large pot of compost, like brambles and see if you can geta rooted cutting...
 ???

[Gadfium]

Thanks, folks. Sadly (aaarrrggghhhhh) there is little hope of any resurrection of the old wisteria.

The 3' tall stump, and roots, appear to have been removed with spade, axe, crowbar and everything else short of a flamethrower. All that was left was a whacking great hole in the border. Now levelled, and looking very neat, tidy... and bare.

One of my parents is pleased with this result, the other is on the verge of committing GBH  ::)

I have been over the remains of the bonfire, and peered in various other possible dumping grounds. I have been unable to locate anything visibly wisteria-like that I could root-up/propagate.

So it looks like I'm going to have to buy (buy!) a new one.

...I think you can put something in sales contracts about protection of certain items/ retention of certain things... covenants? There was one that went with a house round here... the new owners had to agree to take on, and care for, certain resident livestock, for the term of their natural lives (and no shortening them!). Not onerous, but I'm almost certain it was a binding contract.

[Jill]

Sorry you had no luck Gadfium - very sad.  I'm going to take some basal cuttings of ours in June.  Happy to send you one if they take, but you'd have to wait about eight years before it flowered.  This is how it looked 10 days ago.  I'm off to see how it looks now - can't wait!

[dingerbell]

Please someone help me with my Wisteria. The house we have moved into has a large but youngish Wisteria on a South facing wall. I don't think the previous owners knew how to look after it and it is a mess of long whippy creepers with only a couple of miserable Flowers. The neighbours would put those specimens on Desperate Housewives to shame...it's spectacular. How can I get mine to look like my neighbors? Ther's is very old with a couple of very thick branches and masses of bloom. Thanks in advance...Desperate Dinger

[jennym]

This link might help:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0600/wisteria.asp

[Jill]

... and this is what happened to my dear Dad's when he left it for two years without pruning.

[saddad]

That's about right, one year to grow the whippy shoots, one winter to pinch out the ends and a second summer to create flower spurs!
 :)