Wisteria fireworks

Well there's a coincidence. I noticed exactly the same thing in our garden today Loofah. Like you, I've never seen this before on Wisteria. Must be something to do with the right weather conditions as you say.

They do go off with a loud crack don't they, at least in our garden it scared the pigeons off for a while. What also surprised me is how far they fling the seeds when they go off - I heard one snap this evening, immediately followed by the sound of the seed landing on the roof of next door's bungalow and rolling down the tiles. That roof is a good 15 yards or so from our Wisteria plant.

Several of the empty pods are now littering the ground below the plant and some still contain the small hard pea-sized seeds.



The only other plants where I've observed seed pods snapping like this on hot sunny days are broom and gorse. Makes sense I suppose as they're both members of the pea family, as is Wisteria.

 

Our wisterias do produce several seed pods, but I start cutting back some of the foliage in September and they are still green at that time.