A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 wisteria

I have the common purple wisteria growing in the open, in full sun, in the back yard. It's several years old now and I'm ready to make something to wire it too.
I've just spent an hour perusing google looking for pictures of trellis' and other things for them but have failed to come up with anything.
I have the wood:
4x4x8 feet chunks of treated wood to be cemented into the ground.
2x2x4 feet for the lattice work which will be fastened to the 4x4s with 'L' brackets and screws.

Some questions I have about the setting of this contraption I'm making.
Should it be run east and west?
An 'L' Shape with the plant inside the 'L' and the trellis going east and south?
How long should I make this thing?
I don't have a huge back yard and I don't really want this wooden thing to monopolize the back yard.
I was thinking of an 'L' shape, (with the wisteria inside the corner) eight to ten foot long on both angles, and about four feet high around the plant then raising the heigth up at in stages to six feet.

Anyone grow these plant or have any other suggestions? I'm game for anything.

HI! I have been trying to get information on growing Wisteria myself! Now that you have it, maybe you can give me some information on obtaining & growing it for my yard! Thanks........

Hi Kathie.
Well, I honestly don't know that much about Wisteris to be honest with you. Someone gave me a cutting around seven years ago. It lived in a bottle with water for about a year and a half. I had my doubts it would make it, but all of a sudden, it began growing.
The cutting was about ten inches long and only in water. I never change the water of my cuttings as it is my belief that the nutriants in the green stuff helps feed the cuttings.
Anyway, something happened. With in days I could hardly get to my kitchen sink. (the cutting was in the kitchen window, facing west)
As soon as the threat of frost was over here, around May or June, I dug a hole and poked it in there, filling all around it with compost from my piles out back.
That was about five years ago.
The plant has had a rough life.
My dad who likes to mow the lawn chopped it down twice and my German Shepard puppy used it for a teething post.
Last year it bloomed. Just fantastic. So many blossoms.
It's leafing out like crazy now.
All I do with it Kathie is water it durning the summer months of late July thru Mid Sept. and from April to the end of August I give it and all my plants a feeding of Mirical Grow, you know, through that attachment on the end of a garden hose.

I put it in the full sun light. I looked around at some of the other Wisterias around here and the ones that do best are the ones in open spaces with lots of sunlight. I guess cuz it's so cloudy here.

That's about all I know about them.
Hope you and yours the best of luck and hope it blooms as well as mine did last year.

This may sound naive but I thought wisteria was only yellow.

Hi Evan.
Now, I've never seen a yellow wisteria. I wouldn't mind having one.
Mine is purple, more bluish than really true purple. I've seen them from light purple to deep purple, and light blue to a purple-blue.
I don't know why mine doesn't bloom in the spring like everyone elses, but it waits until mid summer to show it's colors.
When it does, I'll post a pic of it.

I've seen the purple and yellow in one garden magazine offering them for sale as a tree form...
I think there was a white one too.
It was on the front cover of the magazine last year I think
I get like 50 of them so I can't remember which one it was.???

And I've heard the vine can crush things the older it gets and needs a heavy duty support system. Maybe in the southern states, it gets huge, and in colder ones stays semi-reasonable sized.????????

Evan, I guess that's what we get for thinking. I only knew of the purples.

Hey, Weezie,,,
Maybe I should purchace a few gardening mags to keep up on what's growing.
I'm confined to my small yard and don't know anyone around here to talk to about plants. I'm the only one who mows my yard on this street.
A yellow Wisteria sounds so invigorating. My only yellow blooming shrubs are the Scotch Brooms I have.

Yes, I'm sure the weight of the vines can bring down a trellis. That's why I'm constructing one of 4x4 post and 2x2 horizonals for the limbs to rest on. I like to shape my shrubs so I'll be keeping the weight of the plant in mind.

I also have purple but have never seen yellow. My wisteria is 4 yrs old and I thought I had killed it last year. It was very slow to come back but once it got going, the dern thing is creaping all over the place. I have mine growing on an old knotty branch tree I found in the woods which we cut down and sunk in concrete. Its pretty cool and the branches look like waving arms. I dont know about where you live, but in upstate NY,it is common for wisteria to take upto 10 yrs to bloom

I did buy a yellow lilac tree on ebay this year and had never seen yellow lilac either. At least they SAID it was yellow. Its pretty small, will be a few years before I get any flowers.

Dan (UV428)and NYGardener,
You know a couple of new magazines wouldn't hurt!!! I am obsessed with them, any and all!!! I wish I could afford some of the big, huge ones, like the encyclopedia's of gardening. But sometimes one says something that the other's don't and when you read enough after awhile, it sinks in...
(Unless, you have drain brain like me......)
Which brings me to why I'm writting!!
I think I have brain drain and I will have to eat my words here too!!!
The more I keep thinking about this, the more I think I am wronnnnnnnnnng!!
(Oh my gosh, can't believe I said that!!!)
I believe that I'm confused when I saw the magazine....**I've been looking for the mag, but have missed placed it, or I could have planted it, I'm not sure now adays!

But I think I'm confusing my pictures....
I believe the yellow thing that I thought was a wisteria is actually a yellow chain tree..........
The wisteria trees that I saw were
purple, pink and white....
The yellow chain tree looks just like the same clusters of flowers.....
And it was sold in the same book.......
When I actually find the book/picture,
I may have to retract my statement.....

There is yellow lilac's, I've seen them for sale on the QVC in the spring time........

Evan, where did you see the yellow wisteria??

Well, guys, I hate to tell you something and then take it back, but I guess I probly have to...... I'll keep looking for that darn mag.

Weezie