This year's pics of 'Blue Moon' wisteria over trellis bench

arctictropical

9 years ago

Year after year, 'Blue Moon' is amazing!

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arctictropical
Original Author

9 years ago

Woodyoak.... here is the amazing thing.... Blue Moon blooms on new wood, not old wood, so there are no flower buds until it pushes out new growth. This is what's so good about this plant. If we have -30 winters, it doesn't matter. There's no flower buds to kill. And since 'Blue Moon' is hardy down to zone 3, I have never had any winter kill of the vines so I always have a full bloom in Summer.

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Comments (10)

woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
9 years ago
Nicely grown! I love wisteria but only have the Chinese and Japanese ones, grown as 'trees'. I'm getting very curious about the native types - and, in particular, the fairly common reports of the 'stinky' flowers... What does 'Blue Moon' smell like? Most of the comments seem to be about 'Amethyst Falls'; I haven't seen many comments re 'Blue Moon'...

Also, do you have any pictures of that one before the leaves emerge? I'd like to see how the growth/flowering wood structures compare with the Asian ones.
arctictropical
Original Author
9 years ago
Amethyst Falls does not have that good of a fragrance, but 'Blue Moon' has a very pleasant fragrance. Not as "Perfumy" as the Asian varieties, but very nice! I can walk around my front yard and smell 'Blue Moon' from 100 feet away or more. I have not taken a picture prior to Spring growth, but it's structure is very low key compared to the Asian varieties. It's very manageable. It doesn't overtake whatever it's growing on. I don't have to trim that much off every Spring, just to keep it tidy looking.
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I don't live in zone 3, but for what it's worth, I have grown the Blue Moon wisteria for 3 years now in zone 4 and can't say enough good about it. Since it flowers from new wood, there are no flower buds during the winter to be killed by frigid temperatures. If the vine lives, it will flower, and flower early. I have tried growing the chinese varieties, which die back, but Blue Moon has had no die back of even the smallest vines. Here are some pictures of my 3-year old vines in bloom over a trellis bench:
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woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
9 years ago
That's good to know re the 'Blue Moon' scent - thanks very much.

By 'structures', I didn't mean overall structure but just the flowering spurs. The Japanese ones are different than the Chinese ones and I wonder what the native ones look like. This is not a great picture of the Chinese flowering spurs but you can see the stubby bits that indicate the vine is mature. As you can also see, the flowers don't just occur on the spurs but the spurs need to be present before the vine will flower well in spring.
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: This picture from spring 2012 shows the Japanese ones (under cover in the picture due to the threat of frost that night - this was the first flowers for the Japanese one and I didn't want to risk losing them!)
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If you remember next spring I'd love to see what the Blue Moon looks like when the branches are bare, focusing on any short growths that might be the flowering spurs....
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
9 years ago
I know that re new wood - but I still suspect there are spur structures that develop too.... That's why I'd like to see what the vine looks like 'naked' :-) (A neighbour has what she/we believe is Aunt Dee - the same type as Blue Moon - and it does appear to have spur structures. She keeps it pruned to about 4' tall in a tree form so that may affect how the structure has developed, so your taller vine would be an interesting comparison). There's not much written in detail about the native wisterias. Peter Valder's book on wisterias - considered the best expert book on them - does not really deal with the American types as he didn't grow them and didn't want to 'pronounce' on them second-hand. If I had the space here, I'd like to grow a Blue Moon but there's really no suitable place in the garden.

This post was edited by woodyoak on Mon, Jun 24, 13 at 11:15
arctictropical
Original Author
9 years ago
I'll take pictures next year, but ALL shoots bear flower buds, so I don't see any difference.
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
9 years ago
Thanks. All shoots bear flowers on the Asians too; nonetheless the spur growths are an important part of the maturing of the vines to a flowering state, so I'm curious to see if they occur on the native type too. It's pity - and surprising too - that there doesn't seem to be detailed botanical information out there on the native types. Perhaps I'm just not using the right search terms....

update...

I just did a search on 'Kentucky wisteria flowering spurs' and found the U. of Illinois Extension site that says 'in summer, prune excess growth back to 1/3 to induce short spurs' so that would seem to indicate that they do occur for the American types too - although the 5-10 years to bloom seems to me to repeat the common view of Asian types, not what is commonly said re American types. There is a lot om misinformation/foggy information on wisteria out there! That's why I'd like to see for myself (through your camera!) what the actual situation is.

Here is a link that might be useful: Univ. of Illinois Hort Answers

This post was edited by woodyoak on Mon, Jun 24, 13 at 20:31
Thao Herman
3 years ago
Where did you buy the porch swing? Is it wood?
Kevin Olsen
3 years ago
Yes. Years and years ago at Sam's Club but I haven't seen anything like it since then. Sorry!
Radhika K
last year
where did you buy the bench from?