It's a vine that can be trained into a little squatting tree. If you let it cover a pergola it can make a pretty interesting space when in flower

Thanks for responding! Oh no, it's a vine? I'd have to train it into a tree? I wonder if that's a lot of work...

'It only grows to 15ft all too.' Sadly, that is not quite the case. This plant is just a normal Wisteria vine trained as a standard and thereafter kept constantly pruned. They need regular training to keep them looking like that.

A poster called woodyoak over on perennials gives occasional updates on life with a Wisteria "tree".

Thank you for the link. Yikes, so, this is definitely not something where you plant it and forget about it.

I still want it in my yard, so I'm going to study up on vines....I don't think any of my neighbors have vines, and I sure know I didn't grow up with vines. My dad was a HUGE lover of roses. Rose bushes were everywhere around our foundation. God help anyone, even us kids, if we went anywhere near them. He was the only one who ever took care of them.

'I'm going to study up on vines.'. Research the specific plant you are interested in rather than 'vines' in general. They are as different as shrubs from each other and there aren't universal rules for their care. Vine is just a description of a growth habit.

Notice the one in your picture is leaning over. You should install a permanent, substantial support with the shape you want yours to have and train it to that. As with orchard fruit trees a typical basic annual maintenance routine with established wisterias that are kept confined to supports with defined shapes and of limited size (as opposed to letting one grow wild and naturally through one or more large trees) is thinning out in winter and heading back in summer, every year.

Viewed after bloom and prior to summer pruning the one shown would typically have tentacles of new growth coming out all over, as each time it attempts to develop its genetically determined and quite large, climbing habit.

"Notice the one in your picture is leaning over. You should install a
permanent, substantial support with the shape you want yours to have and
train it to that."

Will do.

"Chinese wisteria is considered invasive in some regions."

It doesn't appear to be invasive in my area.

I'm going to take this "project" on, so that I can learn something new. Besides, it'll be neat to have the only tree of this kind in our area.

"This plant is just a normal Wisteria vine trained as a standard and
thereafter kept constantly pruned. They need regular training to keep
them looking like that."

Trust me, I am heeding your words.

"Research the specific plant you are interested in rather than
'vines' in general. They are as different as shrubs from each other and
there aren't universal rules for their care. Vine is just a description
of a growth habit."

I didn't know that, about the vine being merely a description of habit. I thought it was its own species. I am so grateful for your responses and for everyone's. I can't thank you all enough.

I have a pink wisteria trained as a small tree, about 8-10 feet tall. I don't think this pink hybrid grows as big as the other colors - and it has no fragrance. The trunk, being a vine, is quite flexible until it is very well established and definitely needs support. The one you pictured must be quite old, judging from the thickness of its trunk. Also, to get the long horizontal branches, you will need to support those for some time until they are thick and woody instead of green and flexible. Just keep trimming off what you don't want and tying up what you do want, where you want it! It is not a quick process. Mine took a year or two just to get the roots established before it put on much top growth.

Not sure about Z5, but here in Georgia, Chinese wisteria is HORRIBLY invasive. Kudzu level.

I used to have one. It was breathtaking in bloom. I started with a gallon plant, trained it to a stake. After 6-8 years it had a thick trunk and large spreading crown, high enough that I could walk under it. At that point it didn't need the stake.

These 'trees' require lots of care. Mine was planted in lawn and constantly produced runners that were almost removed by the mower, but not quite. Once established I pruned heavily twice yearly. In winter it was pruned hard, so each flowering branch had 2-3 spurs that produced blooms. In mid summer I took hedge trimmers to it and would remove many feet of green viney growth. I needed an 8 foot step ladder, a 10 footer would have been better. The winter prune took many hours.

In April of '07 the temp dropped into the upper teens two nights in a row, while the tree was just beginning to bloom. About a month later the trunk was attacked be ambrosia beetles and shortly after I applied a dose of Husqvarna at ground level. Although I probably would not have removed the tree if tragedy had not befallen it, I shed no tears at it's loss.

"It doesn't appear to be invasive in my area"

Though it may not currently be a problem, it very likely has the potential to become a problem in your area. The State of Wisconsin has it on their prohibited list:

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Invasives/fact/Wisteria.html

Unmanaged Chinese wisteria are physically invasive as individual specimens even where they do not reproduce and compete with native vegetation. We are talking shoots that grow across the surface of the ground like sheets of piano wire, shoots that originate low on the stem and then arch out over the ground like runners - in addition to the familiar long, twining main shoots coming from the rest of the top. And main stems that get as thick as human mid-sections. When one of these plants decides to make the complete effort it is quite an appalling spectacle, anywhere containment is desired.

Although there are some named forms that are considered possible hybrids known hybrid wisterias are not usual. The pink one (above) is probably a Wisteria floribunda cultivar such as 'Rosea'. A small habit and long-looking inflorescences are typical for this species.

The pink one was labeled as a hybrid when I purchased it from a local independent nursery.

Look at wisteria floribunda. I find the flowers are more interesting.

Unfortunately, many non-native vines are invasive species. They are
very good at spreading around human altered habitats and some species can
take down trees.

There is a native North American wisteria, Wisteria frutescens.

American yellowood (Cladrastis kentukea)
is a tree that is technically hardy into zone 5 that is described by
some as having "wisteria like" flowers...every other year. Not quite as
pretty as your picture but still very nice and likely less work.

Photos.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrTccqhAV5YXK4AvoQPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Wisteria+Floribunda+Rosea+%28w.+Multijuga%29&fr=yhs-avast-brwsr001&hspart=avast&hsimp=yhs-brwsr001

ANY species of wisteria can be trained into a tree form, so if potential invasiveness is a concern, you can always go with the US native species, WIsteria frutescens. Flower racemes are not as showy - smaller and more compact - and it has a much lighter fragrance but will bloom very similarly to the one in the photo. It will still need a strong support initially, the same sort of attention to pruning and it will also produce runners and shoots from the root system that will need to be addressed but typically not until the vine is well established and somewhat mature.

It is important to know that seed grown wisterias, any species, can take a long time to bloom.......in some cases as much as a couple of decades!! For this reason, it is suggested you purchase only grafted plants, as they will bloom much faster but still need several years of establishment before you can expect much of a show. Also, it seems the harder one prunes a wisteria, the better it blooms :-)

btw, it is believed that many of the cultivars of Chinese wisteria currently offered for sale are really hybrids (W. formosa, a naturally occurring cross between sinensis and floribunda). True Chinese wisteria has no scent, but many marketed selections have a strong fragrance, indicating that they may indeed be hybrids rather than species cultivars. The hybrids should be considered just as invasive as either of the Asian species that comprise its parents.

The native wisteria doesn't have the sweet fragrance of the chinese wisteria that I have encountered. The native wisteria blooms later and has a fragrance similar to callery pear (although it isn't as strong). At biltmore estate they pollard the wisteria that grows along the pergolas every winter, and it always grows back, covers the pergola, and has a beautiful show of blooms. I have tried to grow wisteria 3 times and it never survived 1 year. The species (wisteria sinesis) and a hybrid. I may try growing one in a container.

Wisteria x formosa Rehder (W. floribunda 'Alba' x W. sinensis) was raised by Charles Sargent in 1905. It produces pale violet pink flowers that open almost all together at the same time.

L. E. Cooke appears to be listing W. floribunda 'Rosea' (below, including a good close view) as a hybrid - this may account for the labeling that was seen at the garden center. A hallmark of this cultivar is the otherwise pink flowers being tipped purple, such as the above photo appears to show.

If they are not tipped purple, then it would be another.

http://www.lecooke.com/Images/Shrubs/Wisteria/Pink-Wisteria(RGB).pdf

This looks like a plant that you want your neighbor across the street to grow in his front yard :-)

Wondering if the current shared habit of referring all crossings of the two species to Wisteria x formosa Rehder conforms to Rehder's original 1922 description - appearing to have been drafted to accommodate Sargent's 1905 instance of (W. floribunda 'Alba' x W. sinensis) - I called a friend who has a copy of Rehder's Manual. In it Rehder refers to W. x formosa as (W. floribunda x W. sinensis). So apparently W. floribunda 'Alba' need not be involved.

Web pages mention spontaneous instances of W. x formosa as part of infestations in the southeastern States having been established using DNA testing. But so far I haven't seen anything about named horticultural forms being known hybrids, only presumed ones.

But I haven't looked that much.

Apparently 'Caroline' is a named hybrid. Introduced from NZ, it is often labeled as both a W. sinensis and/or a W. floribunda cultivar.

Yes, that is one of the first ones to come to mind - probably the only named horticultural form I've recently seen being described flatly as a hybrid (by a serious reference), rather than with qualifiers included such as "possibly".

I used to have this, I guess it went to a friend when I downsized. Presumably it has background on cultivars present at the time of writing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881923184/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Would I still have to support the developing trunk if I want the tree to lean, like in the picture of my initial post? For some reason, I absolutely adore the leaning look. It sort of reminds me of a Japanese Maple.

Yes - that is less tense than if a specimen is bolt upright, looks better in particular when a kind is weeping. Which a wisteria tree is when in flower.

With a comparatively soft-stemmed climber like this, trained into an unnatural tree shape you do run the risk of it snapping off if not supported.

This 144 year old Wisteria wishes us all good health and a long life :-)

There are a lot of these grown around were i live at. They look just like your first pic. Never taller. They are indeed very pretty.

They are also invasive. When they bloom, they are all over many of the trees on the area.

they are not attractive to me at all unless in bloom, which is about two weeks. ron's description of the summer habit with long tentacles going in all directions is spot-on as well as the ground hugging cables that require seriously sharp pruning equipment (not all seem to do this unless you remove too much from the top). the shoots reach a stage that becomes sinewy and don't cut easily. i am still working to eradicate one that i trained as a standard and decided to take out. after i cut the trunk, sprouts started coming up everywhere, running just beneath the surface from the base to 15' away. it may behave well for you in your colder zone and i can certainly see the attractiveness of it but it behaves badly here and is one of the worst exotic invasives we have. the white-flowered form is much more uncommon in natural areas.

having said that, here is a photo i took of one at a friends house that he planted after digging it up along a roadside. this one is probably chinese wisteria with the lighter bark and april flowers. should be about 9-10 years old.

Jeff, I never knew there was a white form! I just did a google search on it and here is a pic of one. I wonder why i dont ever see this kind around my town?

Flowers look Chinese also. This produces a shorter bunch with many of them all out at once. Whereas the Japanese wisteria generates an eventually long cluster with a tip of still opening flowers beyond a section of spent ones - in the manner of a gladiolus.

And the hybrid between them is intermediate in floral effect. Resulting in it being considered particularly shapely in bloom. Which is perhaps why Alfred Rehder named it formosa.

Formosa is an old name for Taiwan, isn't it? Might be a coincident though.

An equivalent indicating "from Formosa" would be formosana.