A dear friend of mine is trying to grow wisteria. \u00a0For years she has coveted the feathery foliage and long, fragrant purple racemes of Wisteria sinensis, the traditional Chinese wisteria. \u00a0One day she ventured into a garden center and fell in love with \u2018Amethyst Falls\u2019, billed on the plant tag as a purple-flowered wisteria. \u00a0She bought it, planted it and waited.\u00a0 Now, a year later, she asks me why it has only grown modestly.<\/p>\n
The answer is simple.\u00a0 \u2018Amethyst Falls\u2019 is a cultivated variety of Wisteria frutescens, an American native with a much more disciplined growth habit than its Asian relative.\u00a0 All things being equal, \u2018Amethyst Falls\u2019 should start growing more quickly next year and really take off the year after that. \u00a0Eventually it will reach between eight and ten feet tall, providing my friend with all the romantic purple blossoms she longs for.<\/p>\n
I, on the other hand, long for complete and total respite from wisteria. \u00a0A generation ago, at least, my neighbor\u2019s predecessor planted a maniacal Chinese wisteria along the fence between our two properties. \u00a0Neglected 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.\u00a0 Even the neighborhood deer are too intimidated to eat it.<\/p>\n
Every few weeks, when the wisteria gets a bit too neighborly and begins cascading over the fence, I trim it.\u00a0 This is a tremendous way to exercise while exorcising free-floating aggressive tendencies.\u00a0 No matter how much I hack away, the rapacious vines come right back.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0 cannot be romantic about wisteria any more, even though my neighbor\u2019s \u00a0purple flowers smell divine in the spring. \u00a0Perhaps I will invite my wisteria-besotted friend over here for a pruning party. \u00a0She can count the rampant wisteria vines and then go home and count her blessings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A dear friend of mine is trying to grow wisteria. \u00a0For years she has coveted the feathery foliage and long, fragrant purple racemes of Wisteria sinensis, the traditional Chinese wisteria. \u00a0One day she ventured into a garden center and fell in love with \u2018Amethyst Falls\u2019, billed on the plant tag as a purple-flowered wisteria. \u00a0She … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,3],"tags":[327,324,330,329,328,326,325],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-amethyst-falls","tag-chinese-wisteria","tag-how-to-grow-wisteria","tag-vertical-gardening","tag-vigorous-vines","tag-wisteria-frutescens","tag-wisteria-sinensis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}