"Tracey in Essex" wrote in message
...

Genie2312;936664 Wrote:
Hiya

Yet another question for you green fingered bunch.
I also inherited a large wisteria (covers most of the front of my house)
problem is that it's not had anything done pruning wise so it's now at
the "triffid" stage (i like to keep all my windows open and regularly
have to chop off the tentacles that seem to want to live
indoors....heehee), i have taken the long whispy bits back to 6 shoots
but there is a rather large tangled mess in the middle (about 2/3 foot
thick) that is mainly bare woody stems and i'm a little unsure what to
do....a few people have advised me to cut it back to the ground and
start again.....but i REALLY don't want to)
I searched wisteria posts but none helped as they were maily about
general pruning and not what to do with an out of control mess....haha
It was all bare when i moved in at the begining of february but soon
greened up and did flower quite well (stunning!!!) so i don't want to do
anything too drastic.....

I will get some pics tonight so you can see the extent of what i'm
talking about

Thanks in advance

Kate

And thanks to you too, Kate, for raising the subject. The advice gleaned
from others has been very helpful as I look at my so far flowerless
individual. Have done the 6 bud prune 'thing' for a couple of years and
had no results, apart from an impressive amount of those 'stringers'
mentioned. I think I'll have to do the brutal approach and remove a fair
amount of it's framework. Thanks t you and the others




--
Tracey in Essex

Steady as you go!, Wisteria like a lot of climbing plants have two stages of
growth, climbing/twining and flowering, the trick is to get them to change
from one top the other, chopping out chunks of big stems certainly controls
the size but it will do nothing to trigger flowering, indeed the reverse is
possible, training the stems horizontally or cutting them during summer can
trigger flower production, but sometimes its just a case of patience.

If you haven't yet planted a wisteria then choosing the much smaller W.
floribunda types can also make life a lot easier.

Not all Wisterias are the same species and the results can be dramatically
different.


--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
Holders of National Collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cvs
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk