{My garden gate – Fall 20012}
As soon as the Handsome Husband built a fence and garden gate with an arbor, I planted wisteria asap. In fact I’ve planted wisteria at every house we’ve ever owned {except the first one}.
For those of you who don’t know, wisteria is just about the easiest vine you can grow. The purple and white flowers are intoxicating and usually bloom twice a year. Once in the spring and again in the fall.
When I was at Watson’s Nursery recently I walked by a new shipment of wisteria plants and decided to purchase two of them. I couldn’t resist. We moved into this place about 5 years ago, and I wish I would have thought to have planted then at the front of the house then.
My hope is the wisteria vines will climb up the stone walls and cling to them. We’ll see. If it works, I think it will look amazing.
While I was planting wisteria the other day I also went ahead and replanted my front window box. These sweet potato vines will look awesome this summer hanging down from the window.
Bright pink geraniums. A total must have for any window box.
And my beloved purple pansies. The HH doesn’t care for them, but I do.
It’s hard to believe summer is just 2 months away, especially on chilly days like today. But I’ll tell you what. I can’t wait for all the flowers and vegetables to start growing like crazy. I don’t know if it will happen or not, but I’m hoping for an Indian summer. Bring on the heat! I’m ready.
Peace out Girl Scouts, make today beautiful.
♥Mavis
Cee says
Wisteria is Beautiful, smells great, and highly INVASIVE depending on your climate. Sorry for the caps, but I live in central NC and we have a HUGE problem with invasive wisteria tearing down fences and killing trees.
On our own property we have spent hours clearing it off of our fence – Just so we can reinforce the fence against its weight when it inevitably grows back. The vines grow across our back yard and are so long and entrenched so badly that all we can do is cut it down to the ground with the mower to stop it from invading and growing up our other plants and fruit trees. In the easement, the wisteria is killing 50+ foot tall trees – literally strangling them. The plants are so established that it would require a scorched earth approach to eradicate them.
At the same time, my parents live in Upstate NY and have a wonderful Wisteria plant that they are able to keep under control because of the cooler climate.
It’s my understanding that if left uncared for – all Wisteria is invasive, including what my parents have, but in the south it grows so fast that it’s just not possible to keep it under control once it is set in.
One interesting thing I just learned is that the petals of wisteria are edible (just the petals!). I was thinking of trying to make a jelly that substituted wisteria petals for violet petals in a violet jelly recipe I have – at least make the plant do some work for me!
Mrs. Hillbilly says
Yes wisteria is a very beautiful plant and is very common in the south . However never plant it never a tree Mavis it will choke your poor tree and eventually kill it!!!
Holly H says
I agree. Wisteria is beautiful but can cause damage, even to your house. My parents had wisteria growing on their brick ranch and it had grown under the shingles and caused all kinds of roof problems. Just make sure you keep it trimmed back really good.
Sherry says
It is amazing how differently plants behave across the country. What works up north becomes major problems down south.
I had a wisteria growing over my Tenn. backyard patio trellis. It gave great shade over my patio table in the hot summer, though it bloomed only twice in 7 years. This one plant thickly covered the 15′ by 20″ patio trellis with vines. I had to keep it cut back a lot to keep it from growing onto the house and to lesson the weight of the vine. Eventually though, it strangled and warped the trellis boards and completely pulled out the boards attached to the house, and the vine continued to stand on its own without the support of the trellis. It took me several years to kill it off.
I would love another wisteria, only IF it bloomed regularly and if it was planted on a substantial trellis made from metal, and if it was planted well away from structures and trees.
Renay says
Hi Sherry…up here in Washington state it is still a strong vine, but doesn’t sound as bad as in your neck of the woods. Wisteria is a really weedy plant and if you ever fertilized it, it will retaliate by not blooming! Treat is with disdain and never water it or feed it and it will bloom like crazy!
Mavis says
I agree. 🙂 Ha! I trim mine once a year and that’s about it. 🙂
Heidi says
We have two wisteria vines and love them. Every year we give it a good and heavy trimming.
Here in Portland Oregon we are hearing the weather will be in the 70 next week. Maybe even hitting the low 80’s. Woooo Hoooo! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the weather people have the forecast right.
Rachael says
Yep, here in Central Texas, wisteria is a weed. A very pretty one, but it will pull down trees, pergolas (like ours), walls and fences. They will tap into the stone on the house and pull the stone out (mostly in really old stuff, though, like castles in the UK). Ours only bloomed once a year, but it came down because it was destroying the pergola. The shade was nice and might have been okay if I’d been able to trim it up regularly. We cut it off at the ground and had to keep at it for about year before the plant finally gave up the ghost.
Renay says
I live in Bellevue WA and have a Chinese wisteria – this is the variety that blooms twice. It also vines counter clockwise. Japanese vines clockwise and only blooms once.
It won’t attach to concrete, so give that up now so you can move it and replant it.
It is a great vine, have it on my patio and it smells heavenly when we are outside bbq’ing and partying!
BTW, you can cut it back to the nubbins and it will grow right back. Don’t be afraid to hack.
Katie says
My sister just sent me the link to your site, and I’m having so much fun exploring! We’ve been wondering doing lots of back and forth as we’ve been pondering purchasing a home, and the result is that all of the packets of seeds that I purchased 2 months ago have remained on the counter. I didn’t want to invest in a garden here if I would be starting another garden elsewhere!
Since reading your blog, I decided to go and get a bag of compost and go for it, whatever happens! Thanks for your site. It pushed me in the right direction.
I think I might have to go and hunt down a Wisteria vine!
Mavis says
Just go for it!!! You can always do a little container gardening as well. –> http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/2013/04/tips-for-container-gardening/
Katie says
Thanks for the encouragement! Great post. Thank you for the link. I actually went and bought some containers this afternoon, and plan on taking my two kiddos outside with me to plant tomorrow. Between the containers and the yard, it should work out. It’ll be an experiment!
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
Please read up on it because most vines are really destructive to homes. While they look pretty, they do a TON of DAMAGE to your house. I know that seems silly and they look small but they find their way into minor cracks and holes and can break down foundations and walls.
Please please do some research to be sure wisteria isn’t going to do the same sort of damage that others such as ivy will do to buildings. I’d hate for something pretty to cost a pretty penny to repair down the road.
KK
Sandy Frankel says
My dog was chewing on the wisteria branches so I figured I had better research if it was ok, and no! Oops! I says that wisteria is poisonous for doggies!
Mavis says
Wow! I didn’t know that. Thanks Sandy I’ll be sure and keep an eye on Lucy.
suzanne says
Wisteria is trouble here in the PNW might take a bit longer but by then the vines are under ground everywhere. There are a few planted at the old Heronswood nursery and they are out of control. In all fairness this garden has been neglected but I’ve been told they have been high maintenance for awhile. I think in the hands of Mavis they will be fine.
Lori says
You intentionally planted wisteria? We spent 2 years trying to get rid of it in our backyard. It threatened to overtake every tree we had. We laughed that there was so much of it, it was as though the previous owner planted it. Which we knew was nuts as it is such an invader. I am not an expert but you might want to double check that you have it contained somehow. If that is possible.
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Debbie says
I was looking at your site and it looks really shady. Did you have to harvest a ton of trees to get enough sun for your greenhouse? We just finished our greenhouse and we are freaking out because when we put the covering on (Solexx 3.5 mm.) it seems like all shadows inside instead of sunlight. Solexx says it diffuses the light so you still get 70 % of the available light on your plants…but we aren’t sure how much light we had to start with since we have a lot of surrounding forest that we can’t cut down. Have any of you used Solexx in our cloudy region? Does anyone know how much light you have to have to even bother with a greenhouse?
We thought if we built it, the sun would come! Just kidding. But we are feeling pretty discouraged and wondering if we should jettison the expensive Solexx and just put polyfilm on instead.
Debbie
Joe says
Hi, You inspired me to plant wisteria. I live in southern Oregon and want to build a pergola, 10×15 feet. Do you think planting one wisteria tree at each end will be enough for this space or should I go with more.
Please advise. . .
Mavis Butterfield says
Plenty of room! Take a look at this set of photos from my trip to Napa, California. The wisteria is about that far apart.
Warren says
Wisteria can be invasive if you dont trim it up once or twice a year. If you maintain it though you shouldn’t have any problem. I trim mine really good not long after in finishes blooming and again if any individual shoots grow to fast and try to get into a tree or somewhere I dont want it. Be careful about trimming wisteria late in the summer because that can remove buds with blooms on them for the next spreng and it would bloob as well.