Actually, it can be as much as 20 years before a seed grown wisteria blooms, although Wisteria frutescens and 'Amethyst Falls' in particular are likely to bloom at a much younger stage of development compared to the Asian species. And American wisteria is a big, vigorous vine much like the Asian species......it just grows slower and doesn't have similar invasive tendencies. It needs a substantial support system - simple wood trellises or arbors are generally not going to be strong enough. 4x4 uprights are typically the minimum size recommended and make sure they have very solid footings. The strength of the vining 'trunk' can easily bend metal pipes, so I'd avoid metal arbors unless they are very sturdy and strong. And too, this vine can extend as much as 30' so a large support is typically called for. However, this vine will be marginal in your zone, tolerating temps only above around -3F to -5F, so winter dieback could be commonplace, resulting in a much smaller vine if it survives. Here, even tree-form or standard wisterias are sold as 'vines'. Training a wisteria in this manner is an extended project taking several years, which is why standard wisterias generally command hefty price tags. For a DYI project, get a young vine and stake the primary leading vine to a height of 3-6 feet, removing all basal shoots below this point and cutting back laterals at the top to 2-3 feet. Plan on somewhere in the 3-5 year range before it looks like a real wisteria "tree" :-) And don't remove that support stake until the trunk enlarges to about a 3" diameter, if at all! Pruning and training will be an ongoing project, but it can be very rewarding to know that you did that all by yourself :-) 'Amethyst Falls' is a good candidate for this process as it is a much smaller and more compact form of wisteria than most others. 'Amethyst Falls' IS fragrant - not to the same extent as the Asian species - but many consider the aroma rather musky and unpleasant. And it does have much smaller, less showy flower racemes as well.

Hi all! Hi Mike! I bought a tree form of the Asian wisteria about 4 years ago. It is in a large pot, I root prune it every other year. It is extremely fragrant, smells nice. No cat pee. I cut a few pieces off a couple of years ago and rooted them in water in the winter. They bloomed in spring. In water. I took them to PA for my best friend to plant she wanted a beast to climb about 50 ft of fence. LOL! She loves it. I can't plant my tree in the ground. I couldn't stop it from spreading, it is unreal. I still have it though, and it is doing just fine in a pot. I also bought a Blue Moon wisteria about 5 years ago from a well known online vine nursery, It is still alive, hasn't bloomed, and doesnt grow very much. If it smells like cat pee I'm throwing it in the trash. But, the Asian doesn't, in case anyone wants to know. You can keep it in a pot, just root prune it at least every other year. And remove the pot off the ground about once a month in the growing season so it doesn't root in the ground and spread that way, Or perhaps just place it on cement pavers or a patio. They are beautiful, aren't they?

Yama, How right you are there is a ton of information about Dr. Casper, The Oxford University Press had this to say; The name of this vine was given by Thomas Nuttal, curator of Harvard's Botanical Garden, who made an error in spelling the name of the man he planned to honor. That man's name was Wistar. But at the death of the honoree in 1818, the plant was named wisteria. Nuttal wrote in his Genera North American Plants II , "In memory of Casper Wistar, M.D., late professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania." But too late. Nuttal had already named the plant wisteria. The following I discovered at Associated Content published by Donna and thought was interesting as well. The world's largest wisteria vine grows in Sierra Madre, California. There is even a festival honoring this mammoth wisteria vine and the plant's namesake. The Wistaria Festival takes place annually in this community in California that is home to the more than 100 year old wisteria vine. The popular and showy wisteria vine was originally named Glycinia after the word "glykys," which is Greek for sweet. An American naturalist, Thomas Nuttall, renamed the wisteria in the 1800s to honor a renowned botanist at the University of Pennsylvania. Even though the plant was named in honor of Professor Casper Wistar, his named was accidentally misspelled and the 'a' was replaced with an 'e'. The name was never changed, and wisteria has been the common and botanical name of this plant ever since. The masterpiece wisteria vine growing in California is so large that it has received a place in the 'The Guinness Book of Records'. It has been named as "The largest blossoming plant in the world." This amazing wisteria vine is more than one acre in size and weighs 250 tons. It has more than 1.5 million blossoms every year with 40 blooms per square foot. The branches of this unbelievable wisteria vine reach an amazing 500 feet long. Horticultural experts have estimated the branches can grow 24 inches in 24 hours. The world's largest wisteria vine is a beautiful lavender Chinese variety. It was planted in 1894 by William and Alice Brugman. The couple bought the plant at a local nursery for 75 cents and planted it near their home. They eventually sold their home twenty years after planting the wisteria. H. T. Fennel bought the home and fell in love with the wisteria vine and began building arbors for it. The wisteria vine continued growing and became too large for the supports erected by Mr. Fennel. The huge plant eventually began growing onto the house. The roof could not support the weight of the giant wisteria vine and finally the roof collapsed. The house was demolished in 1931. They built a new house close by. New supports kept being added for the wisteria and it was allowed to continue growing. This extraordinary wisteria vine was honored with its first festival in 1918. This tradition has continued every year since. The festival has approximately 15,000 visitors each spring to celebrate the world's largest wisteria vine. This magnificent antique wisteria vine has been named one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world. It takes an honorably place with the gardens of Buckingham Palace, the redwood forests of Sequoia National Park, Brazil's tropical jungle in the Amazon Valley, India's gardens of the Taj Mahal, Japan's Yokohama rockgardens, and Mexico's Xochimilco floating gardens. Thanks yama and I we can view Mr Kawaharada's photos. kt

Been away from the forum for a while and am just now reading some of the responses. The insurance company guy said it sure was a mighty pretty "bush" but was a fire hazard. Like, what? It was going to spontaneously combust or something? Funny that he didn't say a damn thing about the half cord of wood we have stacked on the back (wooden) porch right up against the (wood) house. Apparently in his mind, logs aren't combustable? I wish we had been able to shop around for a different insurance company, but we've been with this company so long and have really great rates. Maybe that's a bogus excuse, who knows. Too late now anyway as we chopped the vine down last week-end. I cried. I left about 6' standing, so I still have options (I hope) as far as saving it goes. Oh, we also had a small amount of moss on the roof (I live in Washington State for crying out loud, of COURSE there's going to be moss on my roof.....I have moss on my body!)This was yet another thing that had to go according to our insurance ass.....I mean, agent. So we spent days scraping moss as well. Funny thing was, there was absolutely NO moss growing where the wisteria vine was! That side of the house where the vine grew looks so bare now, it just breaks my heart. I took as many cuttings as I could manage and will hope that I get some going from them.........I will plant wisteria vine like Johnny Appleseed. I think I'm going to have my husband build a pergola thing-a-ma-jiggy for me and transplant it to that. If the insurance guy has anything to say about that, they'll be looking for him AND Jimmy Hoffa! Thanks to all of you for your advice. I will undoubtably be back with more questions when I transplant this now stubby little BUSH! Gratefully, Greenlydia