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We shrunk the Chinese wisteria today!

woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada

7 years ago

After this past disastrous winter that killed the flower buds and damaged the tree, we decided it was time to do a severe pruning. We had let the tree get a bit too big anyway in the past couple of years. It was getting out of easy reach of the long-arm pruners. So we cut it down to 6' or so. It was in a pretty sorry-looking state after the winter, but it's looking sorrier now! Hopefully, the pruning should trigger a flush of new growth which we can prune to promote a good secondary summer flower display - which would also be a sign of it producing flowering wood that will - cross our fingers; knock on wood...- survive this coming winter!

What it looked like before we started pruning:

Starting to prune:

work in progress viewed from the other side :

Shrunk!

The dead branches on the road at the bottom of the picture above are from the Viburnum opulus that was at the corner of the garage - it was completely killed this winter (you can see the empty spot at the left end of the garage.... we hope some of the root might be alive and send up new growth....)

So now we wait and see how well it recovers...! The Henryi clematis in the wisteria also inevitably got heavily pruned too, so hopefully it will recover as well!

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Comments (6)

katob Z6ish, NE Pa
7 years ago
Sure does open the view nicely... and as far as how well it recovers, I have no doubts it will recover very rapidly :)
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
there you go.. teach that thing a lesson on who is in charge .. lol

ken
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So glad you finally got some blooms on that wisteria (was it the one that was barren for years?). Not sure what variety mine is (wasn't aware that there were quite a few!) but it has lovely dark blue flowers & heavenly aroma!! I have one I have trained as a tree form (it is about 50 yrs. old), a newer one I trained to grow across the top of the chain link fence. The other tree form was next to a porch post & had grown around & twisted the post so had to cut it down. It was the neighborhood beauty when the top was in full bloom! The cut base now is trying to put out more shoots so we have kept just one to train -away from the post- & let it grow away from the house & up the trunk of a near-by tree!(we may find THAT a mistake later on though?!). Seems wisterias do well with little care... & sometimes with no care at all ... or being ignored! Can be trained to different styles too.
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Do you mean the leaves on the bottom, right side of the picture? If so, those are some of the pale pink hardy hibiscuses in the driveway border. The picture is taken at an angle while standing on the driveway probably about 15'+ away from the wisteria... The angle of the picture foreshortened things, making the hibiscus look larger - and closer to the wisteria - than it really is. (There are some of those hibiscuses beside the wisteria though....)
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For anyone growing Chinese wisteria - are you getting a good summer re-bloom this year? We had a very bad winter here that killed all the spring flower-buds but it is now doing a very nice summer re-bloom. It's actually been a few years since we got a decent summer show from it! Some pictures: Yesterday from the road: (The messy stems at the base are a Henryi clematis companion which seems to have largely died out over the winter!) Today looking at the other side from the front porch:
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Woody, I do have a lot of warm tones in my garden, rudbeckia making up a vast swath of color, then there's the pink, red and almost black hollyhocks, a few red roses and tall salmon colored 'Windsor' phlox being is a real show off, most phlox varieties pale in comparison to its lengthy display! I have plenty of annuals as well! Had tried a perennial red hibiscus, and yes, it was bust for being very late flowering. Thank you for all the photos, it demonstrates of the plants diverse genetics. I once had read an interesting article mentioning of the several American species utilized in breeding. I'd be happy to arrange for an exchange of seed collected from your very earliest of flowering plants, then fun to see how they might respond in my northern neck of the woods! Ruth, thanks for chiming in ... okay yes, 'Pink Elephant' was one I had grown and only had gotten to see a single bloom before frost. Here, a few weeks can make a significant difference in a plant really being able to show its worth or being something marked to be hauled off to the compost!
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princeton701
7 years ago
I chopped my wisteria vine - it had grown so thick that it was the thickness of a person's calf and probably around 75' long...it's now relegated to "only" the pergola, which it is breaking down one of the supports - seriously detrimental. Anyways, for me, it was an awful wisteria year - blooms were non-existent versus last year's were a fairy wonderland.
sara82lee
7 years ago
Princeton - I agree with it being a bad year for wisteria. Unfortunately I really don't like wisteria, it belonging to my neighbor who passed a few years ago. It covers the chain link fence on three sides of her property and is quite unkempt and spreading into my yard, since there is no one living there to maintain it anymore. I wonder if that has something to do with the lack of blooms this year, but there were hardly any.
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
Original Author
7 years ago
It was definitely a bad wisteria year here due to the winter- actually we have had three bad wisteria years in a row due rough winters. It was obvious during the cutting back we just did that the damage was more than just winter-kill of buds - there was a fair number of dead branches that were of reasonable size (i.e. that were several years old). I've not seen that kind of damage on it before.

Both the Chinese and Japanese wisterias here are grown as free-standing 'trees' which makes them easier to prune and control. The Japanese ones can look nice on pergolas, but I wouldn't want to have to climb up there to prune! It doesn't surprise me that many of those get out of control or neglected.
mnwsgal
7 years ago
Nice to see your progress via photos. While I do not grow wisteria it has been interesting to follow your experience. Thanks for sharing.

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