Wisteria

Hi all

I've decided to grow a Wisteria Sinensis up the front of the porch (and yeah, eventually up the house). When is the best time to plant one?

Thanks
Aaron

 

Any time now Aaron, autumn planting is usually preferred to spring, with hardy shrubs as the roots tend to continue growing at this time of the year while the soil is warm.
Spring soil can be cold and the problems of summer drought can be worsened.

 

As long as it`s a container grown plant, Aaron, it can be planted at any time of year. Except if the ground is waterlogged or frozen. A good tip, when buying, make sure you get a grafted plant and not a seed grown one. Otherwise you`ll wait years for it to flower. :thumb::wink:

 

Thanks for the last tip about grafting. Someone else told me this and its good to hear it from another. How do I tell if its seeded or grafted or should I just ask the nursery?

 

The nurseryman should know but,failing that, Look at the base of the stem. The graft should be noticable. Or else buy " in season " if the plants are not flowering, leave them on the bench.:thumb:

 

The price is usually a good give away.
If its cheap avoid it, or if it doesn't have a variety name.

 

I would disagree there Pete. I would expect to pay between £15 and £17 for a Wisteria in a 3 litre pot whether it was grafted OR seed grown.

 

I have a decent Nursery so hopefully they will advise, but thanks David, I'll look out for the base as well.

 

I bought three Wisteria sinensis from van meuwen in the Spring at £4.33 each. I can't remember what they were like, but their web site currently says "Supplied as a 2 year old pot grown plant", anyway, I didn;t have a spot to plant them in and they have been in pots since Spring and are about 8' - 10' tall now. van meuwen plants are very variable, in my experience, often tiny, sometimes out of season, not much indication when they will arrive etc. etc. but I have saved a lot of money buying from them, and nurturing on.

I bought 126 Lavender plug-plants at 14p each from them in the Spring - they were about 1/2" tall, but I have potted them on, nurtured them, and now have plants to make a nice hedge which i reckon will look smashing next year

 

Someone who grafts plants for a living recently said to me that grafted plants are far too cheap.

If someone wanted to sell me a seed grown wisteria for £15 i would say they were rip off merchants.

I dont think I've actually seen seed grown plants for sale anyway.

 

Maybe on ebay? Either way, I'd like it to flower sooner rather than later!

 

I have never seen a seed grown Wisteria. Does anyone actually sell them? What you are actually buying is a cutting of a mature plant. I think they invariably do this as a graft - I am not sure why.

Plants have two main phases in their life - juvenile and adult. When a plant is a juvenile it is incapable of reproducing (a bit like humans), so it can't flower and it can't produce seed. This happens to all plants but for most garden plants this period is quite short. However for many trees it can be a long time. Beech for instance takes about 40 years to reach adulthood. Juveniles can be different from adults, young Beech keep their leaves over winter, but adults don't. Lower branches of a tree could still be juvenile whilst upper branches might be adult. So sometimes on beech trees you may see the lower branches with their leaves on over winter, but the upper branches have lost theirs. Clipping a beech hedge also keeps it young and helps it to retain its leaves in winter.

When you take a cutting, you are creating a clone, which is an exact copy of the parent. If the parent is a juvenile then the clone will be a juvenile, but if the parent is adult then the cutting will be an adult as well, and capable of flowering soon after it has settled down. Consequently a cutting from the top of a mature Wisteria is what is usually sold, as the Wisteria juvenile phase can last for 15 or 20 years.

Interesting - but totally useless :D :D

 

If its a graft it has to be onto something - presumably a seedling??

Grafting is to either combine a rootstock with a different "top-stock" - so a dwarfing rootstock can be used with, say, a convention, large-tree, Apple to keep the resulting plant small.

Grafting is also used to produce an "identical" plant to the parent. Growing Wisteria from seed would give variable plants, so grafting a known-good piece onto a seed-sown rootstock would ensure consistency.

This sort of grafting is, I presume, done where the viability of cuttings is poor. Wisteria will grow from cuttings, and also from layering (which I expect is too slow a process for a commercial nursery)

 

I've never been very knowledgeable when it comes to grafting, so thank you!

 

Thanks Kristen. I suspect that Wisteria is grafted because ordinary cuttings don't root very easily. I don't supose they do it to give the plant extra vigour :D.