Daily Dose Blogger Bios
Wisteria Hysteria
Wisteria!!! Wisteria!!! People lose their cool over this woody vine - they see one, they go nuts; the pendulous blossoms, all grape-y and sexy; the scent, so heady and fresh at the same time - AAAAHHHH! A beautiful wisteria in bloom makes me want to scream! I want to scream with delight and with frustration, because I feel that 9 times out of 10, planting a wisteria is just plain foolhardy.
You see, a wisteria is like the Angelina Jolie of the garden - it is used to being the beautiful, special plant - and it wants everything ... all the space, all the attention, all the love. Don't ever plant her against your house, because she'll take it over and tear it apart with her insatiable need to be twining all over everything. Seriously - I have seen a wisteria eat houses and keep on going, looking for more conquests - searching for her horticultural Brad Pitt.
The lovely wisteria in the image above is in Judy's garden... like other plant lovers, she was seduced and she had to have one - but Judy was smart. She built a super strong structure far away from her house/studio that 'Wister-ina Jolie' could climb and smother without causing damage to other buildings. Vigilant cutbacks from trained maintenance workers maintain this beauty - don't be fooled into thinking it is effortless!
Ivy, this is hysterical. My mother's obsessed with wisteria. I have a funny picture of her smelling it at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. You should get people to send theirs in.
I'm not exaggerating, am I? The way people fall in love with wisteria is unlike anything else ... they fall under a spell. It's that Angelina thing!
Hmmm. Do you think these Wisterinas will stay under control in containers? I have three right now in pots and two are in good shape. I hoped to train one to a tree/standard form as opposed to a vine. If that happens it may or may not go in the ground, but it wouldn't be on any kind of support. Sounds like that may not be a great plan...
Smart Susa, putting her wisteria in containers... this well definately help to check their rampant growth. As for training one into a standard - I think that is a great idea, since that automatically mean you'll be cutting on a regular basis to keep it in shape. Most wisteria go out of control because people don't really tend to their vines, they just let them grow and flower, grow more and flower, and so on and so on ... I am guilty of this as well. but if you take resposibility for the beautiful monster, then you can have an over-the-top beauty like wisteria in your garden! That's the mark of a good gardener.
A-ha! So Wisteria the plant isn't the problem; people who fail to prune are the problem.
With this encouragement I'm moving one of the Wisterias to a second-story balcony off my bedroom. Being in a container as well as getting only half-day (early) sun should keep its seductive growth within reasonable bounds. What I love is that as a deciduous vine, I can have leaves and shade in spring/summer and sunlight in winter. Viva Wisterina! (No decision yet on the standard form.)