Wisteria. What would you do?

But of history... When we moved in I knew even less about gardening than I do now. The wisteria in question had a main stem (what I now suspect was the grafted stem) which was dead - full of beetle holes. It has clearly grown from the rootstock over the years and climbed up the old dead structure. Early this year I ripped out all the dead material before realising about the issue that this growth was probably all from the rootstock. That said, it leafs out well, flowers OK, but for a short period of time and loses leaves quite early (compared to many I see locally).

All that said, do I dig it out and start again? I'll probably have to lift some of the paving stones and get them reset afterwards.

What would you do?

If I hadn't learned anything about it, I'd probably he in happy ignorance.

Keen for opinions!

 

It depends really. The first thing is it will be a sod to get out and you'd need to really prepare the space for a new one if you wanted to replace it.
The biggest factor is the unknown and that's what the rootstock will be like in terms of flowering. These can take a very long time to flower from seed, which is how I believe rootstock are grown and due to the variability of seedling, you just don't know what you will get. It is why known cultivars are grafted on as they produce reliable results. I'd wonder why the graft failed and I think it might be tied to why yours shuts down before the other in the area and I believe it could be a lack of moisture which is common when they are grown near walls and around hard landscape.

 

Well it does flower okayish. Maybe it would do better if I could feed it and water throught the summer.. It's basically impossible to improve the soil as I have a square about 50cm x 50cm, and they'd basically just football!

 

Just wonder if a pruning might help, they quickly become a tangled mess if you dont.

When I had one I used to give it a bit of a tidy up in winter and cut back long new growths in mid summer.

It also looks like it needs a better support, difficult to see what its actually clinging to.

 

Exactly the same thing happened to my wisteria at my last house. I planted it in the early 1990s, a young grafted plant with double, very scented flowers, not very long. Around 2008 or 09 it started looking very unhappy and died but new stems started growing. The old wood became rotten and had beetle holes. I even found a large white grub in the rotten main trunk. I pulled out all the dead wood and tied in the new stems. The next couple of years I pruned it and trained it, fed it and watered it, thinking it had recovered. Then in 2012 it flowered but the flowers were very different, single flowers in long bunches, scented but not so strong. I realised that the new stems were from the original roots. In 2013 it was magnificent, vigorous and covered in flowers. It carried on like that until I moved in January 2021.

I suppose it depends what rootstock was used. This is half of mine in 2013, early May. The whole plant didn't fit in the photo.

 

@pete there was a rotten trellis which I removed last winter when I tidied it all up. I screwed some timber into the wall to allow me to tie the stems in. Other than that, it's held up by horizontal wires above the patio window.

@Busy-Lizzie that does give me some hope. I think I need to give it some care, food and water!

Feeding is hard as there is not exactly much exposed earth. Do foliar feeds actually work?

@Thevictorian. It does try out quite badly there. I need to find a way to keep the ground watered well, I think. I also agree, it would be awful to remove. I think I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt !