Description: A gardening blog from Sheila M. Averbuch
Wisteria is a love/hate plant – somehow easiest to love when you catch sight of its graceful flowers on a drive through the country, past places you rarely or never see. A glimpse of wisteria’s pale purple tresses arrayed down the front of a house is breathtaking.
But if you are the minder of the creature that is wisteria, you’ll know how hard-won that grace is. This is a vigorous, jungle-ready climber, and the slim, year-old plant I put into the ground in 2004 is now thick as a python at its base, with ambitions to cover not just the south-facing wall of our cottage, but our entire village here in eastern Scotland. Coaxing the plant to stay where I want it is like persuading a giant beast to stand against the wall and spread ’em.
Perhaps any wisteria would be like this, but my wisteria floribunda is as vigorous as I’d ever want any plant to be. I thought I was ordering wisteria sinensis – something I still haven’t forgiven the mail-order company for – as sinensis flowers before it leafs up.