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carolineh · 03-05-2006, 08:18 PM

Thanks Charlie and Bob, I do have a very large house (in Brittany, France) and know the growth habit of a healthy wisteria, as I had one on my previous house. I have bought floribunda, and I will try to prune and retrain the single stem to encourage flowering side shoots.

Caroline

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie Pridham

"carolineh" wrote in message
...

Hi

Three years ago I bought 2 identical wysteria plants and planted them
either side of my front door (south facing) - one has flourished and is
now in heavy flower. The other (problem) one has just sent one shoot
straight up the support wires (about 5 meters) and is not flowering. I
believe in order to encourage flowers I need side shoots, can anyone
offer advice on how to encourage them, please.

Thanks Caroline

--
carolineh
For Wisteria to flower you have to trick them into thinking they have
reached the top of their tall tree (which is where they live in the wild)
Light is important but we normally put them on a west or south wall so
that's taken care of, the next thing is what happens to the stems when there
is nothing more for them to climb - they bend over, which restricts the sap
and triggers the formation of the flowering spurs. we try and make this
happen by summer pruning in August cutting the long trails back. you can
also achieve much the same bending the stem down to the horizontal.
You will probably find the plant that - is - flowering was damaged near the
top the previous year.
Hope you have a very large house and have planted Wisteria floribunda not
sinensis as the latter can grow to 120' !!
--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs)