A dear friend of mine is trying to grow wisteria. For years she has coveted the feathery foliage and long, fragrant purple racemes of Wisteria sinensis, the traditional Chinese wisteria. One day she ventured into a garden center and fell in love with ‘Amethyst Falls’, billed on the plant tag as a purple-flowered wisteria. She bought it, planted it and waited. Now, a year later, she asks me why it has only grown modestly.
The answer is simple. ‘Amethyst Falls’ is a cultivated variety of Wisteria frutescens, an American native with a much more disciplined growth habit than its Asian relative. All things being equal, ‘Amethyst Falls’ should start growing more quickly next year and really take off the year after that. Eventually it will reach between eight and ten feet tall, providing my friend with all the romantic purple blossoms she longs for.
I, on the other hand, long for complete and total respite from wisteria. A generation ago, at least, my neighbor’s predecessor planted a maniacal Chinese wisteria along the fence between our two properties. Neglected anywhere from a little to a lot in the last fifteen years, the plant and its equally hell-bent offspring have reached epic proportions, scrambling, climbing and strong-arming everything in their way. Even the neighborhood deer are too intimidated to eat it.
Every few weeks, when the wisteria gets a bit too neighborly and begins cascading over the fence, I trim it. This is a tremendous way to exercise while exorcising free-floating aggressive tendencies. No matter how much I hack away, the rapacious vines come right back.
I cannot be romantic about wisteria any more, even though my neighbor’s purple flowers smell divine in the spring. Perhaps I will invite my wisteria-besotted friend over here for a pruning party. She can count the rampant wisteria vines and then go home and count her blessings.