"According to the Monrovia Nursery Company of California this cultivar has replaced W. floribunda 'Royal Purple' in their propagation schedule because of its ability to flower at a very young age in containers. It originally came from the Verhalen Nursery in Texas. Although 'Texas Purple' is described as a cultivar of W. floribunda, in the photograph provided the flowers appear similar to those of W. sinensis. Because of this and its precocious blooming it has been included in this chapter [Hybrids and Cultivars of Unknown Provenance]. When careful comparisons can be carried out it may be possible to assign it to a species with certainty" --Wisterias, A Comprehensive Guide, Peter Valder, Timber Press Here is a link that might be useful: Monrovia.com : Learn : Plant Catalog : Plant Detail : TEXAS PURPLE JAPANESE WISTERIA

RuthAnn, wisterias often fail to bloom for several reasons. First, if it was seed grown, it might 8 to 10 years to ever bloom. Secondly, if you feed it too much nitrogen fertilizer, it will give you tons of vines and no blooms. If the plant is in your yard, the act of fertilizing the yard may cause the plant to get too much fertilizer. Thirdly, the blooms could be frozen out if the winter is especially bad. Lastly, if you are overly exuberant in trimming the plant back in the fall, you could cut the bloom spurs off. I have heard that stressing the plant can cause it to bloom. You can do this by taking a flat bladed shovel and making cuts in the soil several feet out from the plant all around the perimeter of the plant. I did this on the wisteria plants I had in my first house after several years of no blooms and the plant bloomed the following spring. Don't know if this treatment caused the blooms or whether it just happened coincidentally. It is worth a shot though.

I disagree with the advice above :-) While that is the 'classic' advice, in my experience with Chinese and Japanese wisteria (I have not grown either of the American types....) more frequent (weekly - even daily - at times of rapid growth!) pruning does not harm them and does promote the development of the spur growths associated with flowering. Both my wisteria 'trees' did their first big flush of spring flowers at 5 years of age and the show just keeps getting better. The Chinese one will repeat flower in the summer and it is very noticeable that, when you cut back one of the new whippy stems, usually a flower appears 7-10 days later near the end of the stem that was cut.... The only time I've found that it is not good to prune a wisteria is in the spring before the Chinese one flowers - that triggers a flush of new foliage that hides the flowers. A couple of years ago I wanted to shorten the 'tree' so pruned it early in the spring when the branches were bare so it was easier to see the structure and decide where to cut it back to reshape it. It bloomed that year but the huge flush of foliage happened at the same time as the flowers so many of the flowers were hidden. The Japanese 'tree' needs foliage pruned off when the flowers bloom as the foliage naturally emerges early and can hide the flowers. IMO it sounds like your friend is doing the right thing and she shouldn't worry about pruning hard. If she has an American type, they are supposed to bloom on new wood, so pruning would help with the development of lots of new wood, I'd think.

Nice flowers. What bonsai style will it be? Can you show the whole plant?