You may know that Wisteria is one of my favourite plants. I cannot praise this particular plant enough; vigorous growth, hardy, disease- and pest-free (for the most part), fresh green summer foliage and best of all, a jaw-dropping annual flower show of heavily scented, cascading racemes that resemble a floral waterfall. Wisteria was one of the very first new plants that went into the previous garden about five years ago; here’s me in my slippers planting it all the way back then:
I was brand new to gardening then and so young and naïve. If I was able to go back in time and visit my younger self to impart sage advice it would be, “you’re going to need more galvanised wire and a longer ladder”. In subsequent years the wisteria really took off and went around the side of the house, over the kitchen window and cornered through to the lounge patio doors.
Then we moved house and had to leave it all behind. That was very sad and I thought of the wisteria flowering for the new owners of our old house this year and hoped they enjoyed the show as much as I previously did. They are lucky to have a five-year head-start on their wisteria, whereas I have to start again with mine. Such is the way of things.
Fast forward a few months after our recent house move and here I am, with a brand new wisteria, ready to be planted in the ground, just as soon as I get round to sorting out the border where it’s going to live. It has a prime position already reserved close to a corner of the house that acts as a sun trap. Just as with the other borders, there’s a lot of preparation needed before I can get it in the ground. I need to aerate the soil and mix in lots of compost and organic matter, basically re-invigorate the entire bed. Of course, I also need to get the vine eyes into the wall.
Say a big “hello and welcome” to Wisteria Floribunda – Multijuga, also known as Japanese Wisteria and sometimes with the name, “Macrobotrys”. Do a quick favour for me and perform an image search for this plant and drool helplessly at the results. Gaze longingly at all the images of this vine in full glory with countless long racemes of purple flowers dripping from the ends of each branch, covering walls, arches and pergolas. I defy anyone to not find it awe-inspiring.
I want to have something similar for the front of the house. I plan to train the wisteria up the walls and along the tops of the windows where each spring, the house turns purple with flowers and we look through a curtain of racemes each time we look out of the windows. Just as with the previous wisteria, I will be extending the wire runners as opposed to pruning, I should expect flowering to begin within a couple of years and for it to get better and better from then on.
There are several houses in the area with beautiful displays of wisteria, I plan on being counted in that group after decade or so. This is a long-term plant just like the previous wisteria; the difference this time is that I don’t plan on moving house for a very long while.
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