Thyme - The American wisterias bloom on 'new wood' while the Chinese and Japanese ones bloom on mature flowering spurs on 'old wood'. That's why the American ones start blooming right away. It takes a few years - and proper pruning - to develop the flowering spurs for the Chinese and Japanese ones. My experience has been that the Chinese one developed the flowering spurs quickly and easily, probably partly because it seems somewhat inclined to produce summer flowers on new growth if it has been pruned, and partly because it is a grafted plant. The Japanese ones don't have that summer flowering ability I gather. My Japanese one actually has had visible flowering spurs for several years now so it appears to be just a matter of getting it mature enough. Last week we went to the nearby Royal Botanical Gardens to take a close look at their Japanese ones to see if I could determine exactly which buds are flwering ones. From what I could see, the flowers appear to arise somewhat differently than the Chinese ones since they are accompanied by a burst of leaf growths; the flower raceme is in the center of it all. Seeing the the blooming Japanese ones at RBG made me worried that I might have been accidently pruning off the emerging raceme, thinking it was whippy new leaf growth! So it's hands-off pruning the new growth on the Japanese one for awhile :-) On the Chinese one, it is very clear which buds are the flowers long before any visible growth appears. The Chinese one produces flowerbuds separate from the leaves, which don't start appearing until after the flowerbuds start extending. The ease of identifying flowering growth will no doubt also be true for the Japanese one once I've seen it flower for the first time :-) My wisteria book describes the American ones scent a 'musk'. Like most fragrant plants, the scent is strongest on the Chinese one in early morning and evening. In mid-day you almost have to have your nose in the flowers to really get a good whiff of the scent. I don't know if that will be true for yours as well or not. Grafted Chinese or Japanese wisteria are best to ensure relatively quick blooming because grafted plants usually/should mean it was started from a plant that had already flowered - i.e. is mature. My Chinese one is grafted - there's an obvious graft-union. I suspect the Japanese one is a rooted cutting as I see no graft-union. So it was probably not flowering wood. But the variety, 'Lawrence', is known for its hardiness and being an early and prolific bloomer, so I shouldn't have to wait too much longer. I think there's much nonsense repeated about such things as root pruning and otherwise abusing your wisteria. All they need is proper and diligent pruning of new growth - and time to mature. And a lot of the detailed 'proper' pruning instuctions you find make it too complicated and people tend to give up and let them run amok, which is a big mistake and the main reason they...

Most of the time I am an organic gardner but not over iris borers. When I spot them I dig up the clump and cut out all rotted areas and trim the leaves to healthy parts and fungicide them. It postpones bloom for a year with some irises but not others. I do not dig up all the clumps not showing a problem however for most seem healthy and usually I do not get the borers back again for many years. What is bothering me this year is slugs and snails all over the iris. Never had that problem before and that might be from rain, rain, rain so I stomp, stomp, stomp the offenders.

Suggestions here - Here is a link that might be useful: Wisteria to standard

My mom has a big wisteria vine that has shot out a new whip that has grown to be 6' tall this summer. I want to dig out this whip and train it for a tree. When is the best time?