Solved Wisteria

Hi All, I have a couple of Wisterias and they seem to be acting backwards. They come into leaf about early April and then bloom end of May till mid June. I thought they bloomed first then leafed. All the others around my area seem to do so. Any ideas what variety mine might be so I can look up proper care please. Thank you

 

"You're not doin' it right"


You need to prune them back to between two and four buds in January. I do ours between Christmas and New Year.."there's climate change for you."




So you get this in March. (Same buds)




Then in April, you'll get this. Not a leaf in sight.



A few leaves here as this is May.




By the end of the first week in June I've pruned off the dying blossom and I've more leaves than I could wish for, but they do screen some of the sun from our lounge.



I also prune off all those wispy bits that you can tell aren't going to flower again in September, when you'll get a much reduced show of blooms.

I hope this helps.

 

Wow thank you so much for taking the time to show me. Yes Im not doing it right! They are 3 yrs old and still look like babies so Ive NEVER pruned them as I thought they just needed to grow more. I was wondering why everybody seems to say they grow so fast and mine,,,,,,,,,well............didn't!!! Will take your kind advice for next year.
You have a beautiful looking garden.

 

Just a thought, which one are you growing, personally I dont think the pruning has much to do with the flowering time, that is set by the plant parentage.
How To Choose The Right Wisteria

 

Thanks for your kind words. We've a few varieties of wisteria amongst our six, but they all respond to the same treatment. The natural tendency is to not prune them hard enough.

 

I used to have a wisteria floribunda macrobotrys at a previous house. That grew exactly as you described - some leaves first, then flowers, then continued growth of foliage over the rest of the season. If that's what you've got, it's probably behaving exactly right for its type. As you say, the habits of the wisteria sinensis which you're more likely to see are a little different, flowering before leaves appear. Sinensis also flowers again later in the season, which floribunda macrobotrys doesn't.

Pruning for flowers on an established plant is good, but if it's young then there's no need to bother. Wisteria flowers on the previous year's growth, and it prefers to flower on horizontal branches (hence straining wires for training it). Both those factors, plus the plant still building its root system, mean your 3-year-old plant isn't likely to do too much flowering anyway. From memory with mine (which I planted from a baby), the summer of the 3rd year was when the foliage growth really kicked into gear, and I allowed all that to grow and trained it along wires. The following year got the first good lot of flowers, and that was also when I had enough foliage growth to start pruning back the bits I didn't want.

As a side note, also remember when training shoots along straining wires that the two will twine in opposite directions. Sinensis always goes anticlockwise round things, whereas floribunda goes clockwise (as Pete's link says). If you try to wind it the wrong way around a wire, it will try to unwind itself again as it grows!

 

And just a PS. Mine definitely did very little the first couple of years. I trained it up the (south facing) back wall of our house. I started with one short length of straining wire at waist height, to give the young plant something to hang onto, and then 2 foot intervals from there. At the end of the second year, it was only just onto the next one up, and I was wondering (like you) if something was wrong. By the end of the next year it was most of the way to the upstairs windows, and I was extending straining wires every month. And by the end of the 4th year I was fighting to shut the upstairs windows.

Really just hang in there. It's possible that for one reason or another the roots haven't got as good a grip yet. When it does, there'll be no stopping it.