A strong support structure, like this well-made pergola, is necessary for wisteria.
Wisteria can transform a landscape into a beautiful shade cover, privacy screen, or focal point in just a few years because to its climbing dexterity and quick growth habits. The long flower clusters of wisteria work best when trained to grow on pergolas, arbors, and other sturdy overhanging supports to provide a gorgeous floral canopy. Wisteria is also trained onto large trellises in Japan to create blooming tunnels in the spring. Wisteria can also be draped over garden benches or arched entryways, trained onto fences, stone walls, or wires fixed on those structures.
Even though you might be tempted, wisteria’s vice-like grasp will eventually strangle the tree even if you let it twine around the trunk. Wisteria can be trained to grow as a single-trunk, free-standing tree by staking the plant’s thick, woody stem to a strong post or 4-by-4 firmly planted in the ground. Remove all undesirable growth along the trunk as the plant matures, leaving only the top to continue to grow. Wisteria can be cultivated as a bonsai tree or in huge pots using the same methods on a smaller scale.
Make sure the system is strong whatever of the trellising technique you use. Use sturdy materials, such as strong metal tubing set in concrete or pressure-treated or rot-resistant wood beams, as wisterias will easily topple flimsy timber trellises. You should also avoid growing vines next to your house since they can encircle gutters and creep under siding.
Remember that moving wisteria later can be very challenging, if not impossible, once it has established itself. Because you might not be able to change your decision afterwards, carefully consider your planting location and design intention.
Where shouldn’t wisteria be grown?
In order to support the massive vine, the wisteria’s root system extends out widely and dives deep. Do wisteria roots exhibit aggression? Yes, wisteria’s root system is highly aggressive. Avoid planting wisteria next to walls or walkways because of its extensive and strong root system. These are easily harmed by a wisteria’s root system.
Experts advise inserting a corrugated panel about 6 feet (1.8 m) long and several feet (1 m) broad beside the plant to redirect the roots if you find a wisteria close to a building or pathway.
Does wisteria require a fence?
For growing this most magnificent of horticultural spectacles, Alan Titchmarsh offers tips.
There are several benefits to spring arriving slowly. After a bitterly cold, rainy, and snowy winter, when army-blanket skies were the norm week after week and month after month, it is disheartening to have to wait so long for flowery joys.
Late springs, on the other hand, lessen the possibility of early development, which can frequently be severely scorched by late frosts. Due to unanticipated freezing conditions at the end of the month, a friend’s wisteria, which had put on a stunning annual display for fifty years, was dripping with depressing, grey flower trails in April last year.
Given that the buds didn’t even begin to open until the middle of April, they had high expectations for the kind of show that has become synonymous with their home this year.
How much I adore wisteria! When we got married, it graced the front wall of our humble three-up, three-down terrace house. I trained it with pride so that, during the six years we lived there, its territory grew year after year.
It was the common Chinese wisteria (W. sinensis), which for a long time was the only kind to grow in our gardens. Numerous cultivars with weird names and, in certain cases, strange colors and flower forms are available today, the majority of which are of Japanese origin.
At the Kawachi Fujien Wisteria Garden in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan, a wisteria tunnel is in full bloom.
If you’re planting a new one, make sure you like the color and blossom shape before purchasing a grafted plant because it will bloom more consistently and much earlier. A few inches above soil level, the graft union will be readily evident. There are strategies to induce blooming in older reticent plants, including those that weren’t grafted and were reproduced by layering or cuttings.
You need a sunny wall for wisteria. Giving it a wall with a north or east facing side is a waste of time. The most favored directions, where the wood will ripen most efficiently, are south and west. The pruning process itself is done twice a year. All questing growths that are required to increase the plant’s coverage should be tied in by July; all others should be cut back to around 1 foot. All sideshoots should be pruned to finger length in January. If you repeat this each year, your plant shouldn’t let you down.
Gorgeous Lodge House in Smeeth, Kent, close to Ashford, has a Georgian front covered in thick wisteria.
Wisteria is a twiner and doesn’t have sticky pads like Virginia creeper or aerial roots like ivy, so your wall will need some sort of support system. The least noticeable support is provided by strong horizontal wires attached to strong vine eyes screwed into the wall at intervals of 18in.
The likelihood of this happening can be reduced by regularly untangling the stems during winter trimming. A well-attached trellis can be used, but the snaking branches can get behind it and, as they fatten over the years, they can rip it from the wall.
Every March, you may encourage regular bloom and strong development by giving your wisteria a liberal serving of rose fertilizer, which is rich in potassium and magnesium, which assist flowers open up. If your wisteria has been pruned, nourished, and grown on a sunny wall for three or four years and still won’t bloom, consider it a failure, yank it out, and plant a grafted type that will catch up to it.
The wisteria-covered entrance to Dunsborough Park in Ripley, Surrey, is like the doorway to paradise.
The ancient standby Macrobotrys, which has flower trails that may reach a maximum length of two feet, is my personal favorite of the several types that are offered. The elegant white variety are just as striking as the lavender purple ones in the correct circumstances.
The plain W. sinensis, whose flower trails emit the most scrumptious aroma in spring sunshine, is a plant I would never avoid, especially if it were planted near a bedroom window that could be opened to let in the intoxicating scent.
Being so demanding with food and water, wisteria plants are difficult to grow successfully in pots and other containers. You can grow wisteria as a free-standing “standard” on a 5 foot bare stem if you don’t have access to a suitable home wall. It will require some support, but when I was a student at Kew Gardens, I recall enormous free-standing specimens there that were already well over a century old. They scuttled around a rusting iron structure that they had all but destroyed like boa constrictors.
To enjoy the pleasures of late spring and early summer in the company of one of the most stunning members of the plant world, all we need right now is the kind of sunny weather that was lacking earlier in the year.
Does wisteria require a trellis to grow?
In the spring, wisteria blooms ferociously, producing clusters of lilac-colored flowers on fresh growth that develops from spurs off the main stalks. Check out our Wisteria Growing Guide for more information on wisteria maintenance, including planting and pruning.
About Wisteria
Wisteria is a long-living vining shrub with cascades of blue to purple blossoms that, in the spring and early summer, look stunning hanging from a pergola or archway. However, this vine is known to grow fairly heavy and to grow quickly and aggressively, frequently reaching lengths of more than 30 feet. It’s advised not to put wisteria vines too close to your home since they will squirm their way into any crack or crevice they can find.
Beautifully fragrant wisteria flowers offer a feast for the senses. A brown, bean-like pod remains on the plant during the winter after flowering. There are only blooms on fresh growth.
Note: Be careful when planting wisteria! The wisteria plant contains lectin and wisterin, which are poisonous to people, animals, and even pets. If taken in significant quantities, these poisons can result in anything from nausea and diarrhea to death.
Is Wisteria an Invasive Plant?
The wisteria species Wisteria sinensis and Wisteria floribunda, which are not native to North America, are regarded as invasive in several areas. If you want to add a new wisteria to your garden, we advise choosing one of the native North American varieties, such as American wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) or Kentucky wisteria (Wisteria macrostachya), which are excellent alternatives to the Asian species.
Do you want to know how to distinguish between North American and Asian species?
While North American wisteria is not quite as aggressive in its growing tendencies and has smooth seed pods and fruits in addition to more-or-less cylindrical, bean-shaped seeds, Asian wisteria is an aggressive grower with fuzzy seed pods. Another distinction is that the flowers of American and Kentucky wisterias appear in the late spring after the plant has begun to leaf out, whereas those of Chinese wisteria do not.
When to Plant Wisteria
- Plant during the plant’s dormant season in the spring or fall.
- Wisteria can be grown from seed, although plants from seeds frequently take many years to mature and begin to bloom. It is advised to buy wisteria plants that are already established or to begin with a cutting.
Where to Plant Wisteria
- Put a plant in full sun. Even while wisteria will grow in some shade, it won’t likely bloom. Sunlight is necessary.
- Wisteria should be grown in fertile, wet, but well-draining soil.
- Wisteria will grow in most soils unless it is in bad condition, in which case you need add compost. Find out more about soil improvements and getting the soil ready for planting.
- Because wisteria grows swiftly and can easily engulf its neighbors, pick a location apart from other plants.
- Additionally, wisteria is renowned for encroaching on and infiltrating surrounding buildings like homes, garages, sheds, and so on. We highly advise against growing wisteria too near your house!
- Wisteria vines need a very strong support, like a metal or wooden trellis or pergola, to climb on. Plan carefully and use substantial materials to construct your structure because mature plants have been known to become so heavy that they destroy their supports.
Wisteria looks gorgeous growing up the side of a house, but use caution when planting it because it is a very strong vine that will get into any crack or gap!
Caring for Wisteria
- Apply a 2-inch layer of mulch and a layer of compost under the plant each spring to keep moisture in and keep weeds at bay.
- Phosphorus is often used by gardeners to promote flowering. In the spring, work a few cups of bone meal into the soil. Then, in the fall, add some rock phosphate. Study up on soil amendments.
- If you get less than an inch of rain each week, water your plants. (To determine how much rain you are receiving, set an empty food can outside and use a measuring stick to gauge the depth of the water.)
- During the summer, try pruning the out-of-control shoots every two weeks for more blooms.
Pruning Wisteria
- In the late winter, prune wisteria. Remove at least half of the growth from the previous year, leaving only a few buds on each stem.
- Also prune in the summer after customary flowering if you prefer a more formal appearance. On fresh growth, spurs from the main shoots of the wisteria develop its blossoms. Trim back every new shoot from this year to a spur, leaving no more than 6 inches of growth. So that there are no free, trailing shoots, the entire plant can be trained, roped in, and otherwise organized throughout this procedure.
- Mature plants that have been cultivated informally require little to no more pruning. However, for a plant that has been formally trained, side branches should be pruned back in the summer to 6 inches, then again in the winter to 3 buds.
- Possess you a fresh wisteria? After planting, aggressively prune the vine. Then, the next year, trim the main stem or stems to a height of 3 feet from the growth of the previous year. After the framework has grown to its full size, midsummer extension growth should be cut back to where it started that season.
Where should a wisteria plant be planted?
According to Kirsten Coffen, a landscape architect and designer based in Maryland, “its gorgeous spring-blooming cascade of purple (or white) scented flowers is best observed when trained on a structure, such as a robust pergola.”
Such a lush, floral canopy offers delightful shade throughout the sweltering summer months. According to Irene Kalina-Jones, a landscape designer at Outside Space NYC (opens in new tab), “We plant it on rooftops in the city, training it to cover pergolas to create shade.” “But I enjoy it grown against buildings, too,” you say.
Wisteria grows best in full sun in a protected location, such as a south or west-facing facade. When planting, work in a lot of organic matter (such as compost) to ensure that the soil is rich and well-drained.
If you want to grow wisteria up a wall or the front of a house, put some effort into building a strong structure that it can climb over many years. A tensioning system of wires is possibly preferable to a wooden trellis because wood can rot. The wires must either automatically tighten as the plant gains weight or be simple for you to tighten (via turnbuckles, for instance).
How is a wisteria fence trained?
Wisteria sinensis or W. floribunda are the two species that we grow the most frequently. The former Chinese wisteria bears its flowers prior to the development of its leaves. The blossoms of the Japanese wisteria floribunda develop simultaneously with its foliage. These details have a significant impact on the species you should choose to raise. W. sinensis thrives on vertical surfaces (house walls, fences, trellises), where its bare blossoms will be best seen. It is preferable for W. floribunda to grow up and over strong arches, arbours, and pergolas. As a result, the longer racemes (bunches of flowers) can hang down and be completely free of the leaves.
How to plant wisteria
Wisterias grow best in soil that is fertile but well-drained. Even though they perform best in direct sunlight, they can tolerate little shade. They can be grown in big containers. To prevent a “rain shadow,” make sure plants are 30–40 cm away from the base when growing up a vertical surface (the dry, shaded area closest to the base of walls and fences). Back the shoot up toward the ground.
Wisteria can be grown into a free-standing specimen; more on that later.
Training wisteria as a climber
When preparing Wisteria to climb, there are only four guidelines to remember:
- In July or August, reduce the whippy shoots from the current year to just five or six leaves. This improves bud formation and speeds up wood ripening by increasing air movement and light penetration through the leaf.
- In January or February, perform a second cut, only removing two or three buds.
- Strong, taut training wires positioned horizontally along a wall or fence are used to train desired shoots. Use soft twine to secure shoots to these wires.
- If it’s necessary to remove old, diseased, or unwanted shoots, wisteria will react nicely to hard pruning. However, be cautious since shoots entwine around one another; you don’t want to unintentionally harm good, productive growth.
Training wisteria as a free-standing specimen
In your garden, grow a few free-standing wisterias for something a little different.
- Plant a wisteria with a single stem next to a reliable support (1.5m or more). The single stem should be tied in and let to extend all the way to the support’s top.
- In the first spring after it has reached the peak, cut off the single stem tip.
- Trim the upper side shoots to 15 to 30 cm in length and remove the lower side shoots. The plant now has a sturdy “head” from which to grow.
- August is the time to prune August shoots back to seven leaves once the head has gotten sufficiently woody.
- To keep your shape, trim any old, undesirable head shoots in the winter.
- To reveal flower racemes, trim March shoots back to 2.5 cm of their bases.