Asian Wisteria aka Chinese Wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) or Japanese Wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) is not to be confused with our better-behaved, Native Wisteria (Wisteria frutescens). I have the native 'Amethyst Falls' and it came back last year for me, grew a foot, put on a tiny flower, then did pretty much nothing all summer. This year, there is a green leaf trying to sprout and that is it. So much for natives being "easier" and more suited to our gardens. I have babied that thing and this is how it rewards me?
Last week, I went with the Garden Writers to our regional meeting at Mt Cuba and on to Hagley Museum and Gardens. There adorning the front of the Georgian-style mansion Eleutherian Mills (pictured at top and in close-up here), the first du Pont family home in America, was the most spectacular, wondrous Wisteria I'd ever seen. I took about 30 photos of it. I could have stayed all day. I was emchanted and enthralled. It reminded me all over again just WHY I'd accepted the piece of invasive Wisteria root a friend had dug out of a nearby park and added it to my garden. I had been warned. I knew the risks. I certainly had heard all the horror stories. I didn't care. I was in love. I had seen the Wisteria vine draping the side walls of the National Gallery of Art and I wanted it too. This bad boy was mine and once he got to know ME, he'd surely be tamed, right? Well, you all know how that story ends. I can't say we didn't have our good times. He produced some wonderful memories for me as he bloomed profusely and multiple times in one season on my garden arch framing my pond entrance. We took many photos together there in each other's embrace.
Then I tried to change him. I moved the arch to the front garden and attempted to hack him back into a tree standard form. He rebelled -- sending out tendrils and roots in every direction. He no longer blooms for me. Nor will he just give up and leave. When I see him now, we both turn away and sulk. Secretly though, on long summer nights, I think back on what could have been if I had not tried to change him and sigh.
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Give the Amethyst Falls a chance. I've had one for several years, did nothing. Now it's blooming like CRAZY every year. It just takes a while.
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine...no, really. We can't grow Wisteria here (at least I've never seen/heard about one growing up here). But it's the typical grass is greener thing. I can't grow it so I want it;)
ReplyDeleteChristine in Alaska
Yes, relationships with the gardener and plant can get turbulent, and it's hard to tame a bad boy. I find Wisteria to be so gorgeous when in bloom, and it smells great too. Hopefully you'll eventually have luck with the native.
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