Wisteria

Hi all, have a wisteria which has overgrown by a great deal, I am coming back from long-term illness. I wish to trim it but obviously do not want to damage its growth, any advice on this would be greatly appreciated thank you for your time

 

Wisteria are pretty resilient. They're really like an attractive weed.
You have to take charge.
Decide which branches you wish to keep and prune off the others.

It's a bit like a "leaky hose," the energy will be going into the parts of it nearest the roots. So it will be producing a lot of side shoots near the base. These need pruning off regularly so that the energy is forced to go to the higher parts.

I'm constantly pruning off unwanted shoots throughout the summer.

Then it gets its main prune down to between two and four buds. I do this between Christmas and New Year.

You have to be ruthless, so it ends up looking like this. Branches I don't want get pruned off.






Then you get this. The blooms will appear before any foliage.

 

I used to have one at a previous house. It took a couple of years to get established, and then the trouble was keeping it under control!

Wisteria mostly flowers on the horizontal branches, so you want to encourage that. If you don't already have straining wires, get some in to help that. You don't have to have them dead horizontal - Riley's more informal pattern is really pretty - but you do want them spreading across rather than up.

And if you want to train new growth along a straining wire, don't be afraid to bend it into the shape you want. It's pretty resilient stuff, and it trains best with end of season growth or last year's which isn't too woody yet. Do remember that it wants to wind clockwise round straining wires too.

Edit to add... And as Riley says, don't worry too much about chopping anything which isn't going where you want. It's damn near impossible to kill, and the way it puts out new growth, you'll have new branches quick enough.

 

One of the features of wisteria is that you always get a second showing of blooms. They are sparser and a bit straggly, but "it does its best."

They're just coming out on this one, which I trained to grow up an old tree stump..

 

@Doghouse Riley your wisteria is absolutely beautiful! Does it take years to get to that stage?

 

Thanks for the kind words.
To be honest we've not had too much luck with wisterias.
It's difficult to remember dates as the five we have are of various ages.

This is one in about 2000, that we bought in the mid eighties. I grew it along the pergola I built for it on the back of the house. But unfortunately it died. It was replaced with another and that presently shares half that pergola with the branch that comes round from an old one next to the garage.




This one was here when we bought the house in 1972. Just growing along part of the garage wall The house was built in 1965 so I guess the first owner planted it around then. He said it didn't flower. Over the years I encouraged it and eventually trained it over a pergola next to our koi pool, both built in 1986.


From these photos I guess taken around 1990 you can see that the white one growing up the pergola post in the foreground is very young.



This is the old pool pergola, built from 3" X 2"



(Digressing). Seeing this, I've just reminded myself. We went from French windows at the back of the house to patio doors with the new extension, then back to French windows. An example of one of my wife's, "What I though was....."



Unfortunately the main part of the one on the garage died three years ago. I wasn't that bothered as it had got very woody and I'd already had to build a more substantial pergola a few years before to support its increasing weight. I had to dig out all this rotted wood.



But a part of it survived I'd already trained that branch you can see, years before over the top of the side fence and onto the pergola on the back of the house, that branch is doing fine.




I'm training new branches from it back over the new pool pergola.
This pergola has 4" X 4" posts and the two main beams.

I had to make special wooden brackets to support the pergola and accommodate the garage guttering.



Although I bought a white one and planted it half-way down the side garage
last year and is doing well.




The one on the fence between the tea-house and the shed is I think about 25 years old now.
The one in the bed near the back fence about fifteen.
It really takes that long to get them established, but you have to keep removing unwanted branches regularly if you want it to grow long.

 

Hi. I have an established wisteria on an easterly wall. It always produces lots of leaves but not too many flowers. I have some branches that I don't believe have had any flowers on for the last 2or 3 seasons. Should I cut these branches out so new ones can be trained in that may flower, or is it more to do with what sort of feed (and when) it gets fed. It gets pruned quite a lot because I don't like it getting untidy and it has filled up all the available wall. Hope someone can help. Please.

 

Wisteria, I did have one some years ago and it flowered well for a good few years.

I always pruned only twice a year, in winter Jan. for the main shape, and a prune back of long summer growth in July, to just a few buds back to the old wood.

This worked for me, but it may take a couple of seasons to get yours under control, dont be afraid when it comes to the winter pruning if its out of control, first establish the main framework.

Then in summer pruning you never go back into the old wood, only cut back current seasons growth.

Just noticed, an Easterly wall in not a great aspect for wisteria.

 

100% as per @pete's advice. Perhaps you could compensate for the easterly aspect with a high-potash feed, bonfire ash, tomato fertiliser, something with a high 'K' content in the NPK?

 

Thanks for the answers, I'll certainly use a high potash feed when the time comes. Do you think I should cut out the old branches as they don't seem to flower only produce leaves? Or maybe give a heavy feed when the time comes?

 

Personally I dont think there is a substitute for good old fashioned sunshine, and its not going to get it on an East facing wall, but you can but try.
Cutting out of old branches should only really be if they are wrongly placed, cutting them out will probably produce more vegetative non flowering shoots in the short term.

 

Sorry, you can tell I'm new to this It's the east wall in the garden but faces west so it does get sun. Should I be describing it as westerly facing ?

 

Ahh that's better! Yes, it's west-facing. If you've got a decent framework of older branches, then it really is just a case of cutting the long, whippy, new growth back to within 2 buds of the framework. This should encourage flowering spurs. Cutting into thick, old wood will result in new, vigorous growth, but not necessarily flowers.

 

Arh, west facing is better.
It gets much more sun of a better qualty than a wall facing east.

 

So should I cut out the old non flowering branches do you think?