A friend was removing a Wisteria sinensis from her garden earlier this
spring and allowed me to remove it. It was in one of those "terracotta"
plastic pots but had "escaped" and grown into the ground bursting the
pot. I cut all the limbs back short and dug it out, cutting all the
roots back to the confines of the pot. It was potted up in the bottom
of a plastic barrel in perlite with some organic matter added, mostly
pine bark. It has "exploded" with new growth. I've removed the new
shoots on the trunk and bottoms of the limb stubs which didn't seem to
discourage it in the least. It continues to break back and put out very
strong shoots.
I've read up on wisteria in the 1990/No.1 issue of International Bonsai
and am planning to follow the recommendations of Dorothy Koreshoff
(adjusted for the Northern hemisphere of course). She indicated three
pruning/pinching periods; early spring for heavy cutting back, late
spring to pinch back to two nodes and late summer (August) to prune to a
"...couple of inches of new growth." So that's the plan. Here's the
question.
Since the late spring pinch (which I actually did mid-May since the
plant was growing so strongly), the growth has been tremendous, with
some of the shoots extending over two feet. And it's still late spring.
With the strength of the plant, should I pinch again or just let it go
until August? I'm rubbing out buds on the trunk and removing downward
growing shoots, but leaving sideways and upward growing shoots on the
limbs. I expect to put it into a deep training/show pot next spring
styled as an upright (it's about 30" tall without the foliage). Any and
all thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks and have fun - jay
Jay Beckenbach - Melrose, FL - Zone 8b/9a -
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