Wisteria
 

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

Wisteria's can be bit fussy so i'd say find a reputable gardening book for advice but I'm sure cutting it back won't do it too much lasting damage they live for hundreds of years so come back slowly. I have known them to be transplated and suffer huge upheavel and look as if they are dead foir a couple of years before returning to full glory tho.

Pot Tastic

thank you for your advice, ive trawled the internet but they only say about pruning to 6 green buds now and them back to 2 in feb but the really thick bit needs taking right back.....if I cut back into the woody stems (no green growth) do you think it will sprout new growth from them? (don't want to end up with a dead bit right in the middle....haha)

Wisteria
 

"Genie2312" wrote in message
...

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


Leave it alone now until its lost its leaves, you can then remove unwanted
stems, look for the short stubby flowering spurs and try and keep those
parts with lots of them and remove those stems without any, in summer after
flowering you can constantly shorten all those long whippy trails, I am
afraid if it is Wisteria sinensis it will be a constant job to keep it
looking good, less so for Wisteria floribunda, but an established wisteria
is a great asset and I certainly would advise not to cut it right down as it
might be several years before it flowers again and it will only make the
situation worse. You either have to work at it (like a hedge) or get rid of
it, there is no easy way


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

Thank you Charlie......i was thinking it would be easier when i can see what i am doing!!!
I'm not sure which of them it is....googled images and they both look the same to my novice eye :/
I will leave it till feb and then see what happens....think i might get someone in that knows what they are doing though as it was spectacular when it flowered so i don't want to upset it

We've five wisterias, including one which was here when we moved into our house nearly forty years ago.

Throughout the summer they produce long "stringers" from various places. I always prune them back as soon as they appear, they can grow several inches overnight. It's a weekly job for me, well into September.

Think of your wisteria as a "leaky hose." The energy of the plant is going into these stringers and possibly not where you want it to go.

Don't be frightened of pruning at this time of year. You've probably some branches that are as thick as hoses and are growing all over the place finishing with a clump of foliage at the ends. Decide what you want to keep and cut the others off from where the leave the main trunk, if you think they are superfluous. You might need a saw (but make sure you are pruning the right one!)

An ideal wisteria shape is this one, which we have trained over the last fifteen years. It's attached to horizontal wires stretched between the concrete fence posts which I drilled for "eyes" to connect the wires.

You need to prune the side shoots back to between two and four buds in January. I actually do ours between Christmas and New Year.

If you leave it until spring you won't get many blooms.

You will know you've got it right when the blooms appear before the foliage. Here they are coming out in mid April this year.

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2636/p1030606m.jpg

This is the same plant five weeks later.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6571/p1020925gf.jpg

They are very adaptable This is a branch of the same plant I've trained round the eaves of our Japanese tea-house.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3273/p1020923i.jpg

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/6837/p1020972r.jpg

This is our oldest. This is in late April, it flowers first, because of the heat from the adjacent koi pool.
This got some heavy pruning a couple of weeks ago to reduce the canopy to two rows of "heads" down each side of the length of the pergola. It had got to the stage where the canopy was solid with foliage in the summer and you couldn't see half the blooms. A good few of those branches you can see against the garage wall got the chop.
That pergola is sixteen feet long and the plant then goes along another fifteen foot fence and onto the pergola at the back of the house.


http://img852.imageshack.us/img852/460/p1030632.jpg

they are fantastic pics....the first one is stunning....and i love how you have trained it round the tea room.....
thank you for the advice.....it's been really helpful....i feel a bit more confident now.....going to leave it till feb when i can see what i'm doing and take it right back to the main branches........i looked through it yesterday and there are quite a few very thick stems/trunks.....but lots of woody whispy bits too.....so i think it's all those that need taking out....

thanks again for your advice

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

Wisteria
 

"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

As I said earlier, you can prune back an overgrown wisteria at most times.
But the pruning to produce flowers must take place in January. Side shoots to be cut back to between two to four buds, maximum.

I always recommend buying a wisteria during the flowering season. Some garden centres will stock some wisterias that will never flower.

If you must buy one after the flowering season, look for one which has the serrated spines that are left after the blooms have fallen.