On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 18:29:18 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:


Thanks for the double dose of faith in me, but my own wisteria is still
relatively young ten foot fountaining thing, so I've done only a little
pruning of it to date, & have too little expertise to do more than repeat
what I've gathered more from books than from experience. I think I'm
training my correctly but it's not yet large enough or often enough pruned
to reveal any fault if I've made any mistakes; eventually I want mine to
be growing downward from the top of the garage so I don't yet have the
effect I've planned in the long run. Lilly's transplanted one will
certainly need any sickly bits trimmed off, & one would expect the shock
of being dug up & transported to a new environment to result in some bits
dying. The chap who advised never to prune it sounds wacky, but there may
be conditions where it's proper to let them go wild, I dunno. What follows
below reposts my thoughts on this subject from several months back, & my
thinking so far hasn't changed:

If you do autumn or winter pruning, the wisteria will grow rampantly in
spring. But if you prune in summer, you can really control its size &
direction of growth. The longest rangiest new vines should be removed in
summer, plus any that seem to be "tired" from age or showing signs of
sickliness, take those out entirely or back to the point of healthy plant. A
lesser autumn pruning would be to cut back young scraggly shoots no less
than to half their length, to as short as only a half dozen leaf points,
as this will induce strong spur growth where the next year's flowers will
occur. Twice-a-year pruning is typical for wisteria which will otherwise
take over everything.

If you don't prune at all it'll still bloom all right next year, but each
year you fail to prune, it will bloom less & less, & be harder to train
when it reaches emergency status. You can also grotequely over-prune to
create standing shrubs instead of vines, or even to shape them into
tree-wisteria, but I'd prefer a slightly more rampant natural look. If
they can be trained up a wall they look best hanging down from above, & if it
seems aesthetic in the location, you can prune the lower portions
dramatically to keep an area clear nearer the ground for other flowers.


Thanks Paggers, this is basically what Pam's link said as well. I
transported mine in a giant pot, the same pot it was in when the guy,
the whacky guy gave it to me, heh. I'm thinking of planting it in the
ground after I prune the beejeezuz out of it. Hopefully that will give
it some new life, even if it doesn't bloom for a year or 2 after.

(On a completely unrelated topic, did you catch the NGEO special, part
of the Taboo series, about sworn virgins in Albania? Amazing!)
~Lilly
Last night you were, unhinged.
You were like some desperate, howling demon.
You frightened me. .......... Do it again.