Chinese wisteria summer bloom #2!
I'm sure I posted pictures a couple of weeks ago showing the Chinese wisteria doing a decent secondary summer bloom after not blooming this spring. I can't find the thread - maybe it was just on the Vines forum; I didn't look there..... We noticed this morning that it is doing another bloom flush after the first one mostly finished! Since we got no spring bloom on it this year, it is obviously busy rebuilding flowering wood! We've got our fingers crossed that we'll have a decent winter this year and a good spring bloom from it next spring!
summer flowers July 1:
Those ones lasted a week or so, then it took a break and now it's producing more - photo taken just now:
It looks like the clematis that grew into the wisteria is not going to recover - you can see the tangle of brown stems on the right. There are a couple of new green stems in there but they aren't very vigorous. Most of the wisteria flowers are on the side shown - the side that faces the road and gets more sun. There are some on the other side too but not as many:
It's been a very odd year for this 'tree'!
Comments (7)
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
5 years agoHmm.... It looks like either there is little interest in these fascinating plants - or you're bored by more wisteria pictures from me! :-) I was hoping someone else with a Chinese wisteria - or someone who has seen one flowering in their neighbourhood - might chime in regarding their experience with summer flowers on them.... Wisterias are certainly a bit of work re pruning and such, but they are beautiful and fascinating plants. We are still learning things about them after having them in the garden for almost 20 years. The summer flowers still involve a bit of mystery for us. Some years we get a lot and some years not very many even though we prune the new growth - which seems to provoke the flowers - every year. Not all pruning of new growth generates flowers, so we're not sure why sometimes it happens but not other times. Summers after a bad winter that killed a lot of flowerbuds seem to result in more summer flowers - which seems logical if the vine is trying to replace lost flowering wood. The summer flowers also look a bit different than the spring flowers but it's hard to precisely define the difference :-) I think the spring flower racemes have the florets packed more densely while the summer racemes seem to have the florets spaced further apart. I looked through pictures of ours over various years, trying to 'see' the difference:
- We cut back some growth this morning that was extending beyond its allowed space, and harvested a couple of the summer flowers for a vase. (Nice fragrance to go with breakfast this morning!) You can see that the florets seem to be spaced well apart:
This picture is from a couple of years ago, showing a summer bloom on the tree:
And this is a picture of a cluster of spring flowers from a few years ago:
When you look at the spring picture, it looks like the florets aren't all that much further apart than the summer ones in the picture of them on the tree. Perhaps the difference is that they open more quickly along the raceme in spring....? One of the things about wisteria that attract me is that they raise lots of questions to think about :-) There is not a great deal of reliable, detailed information on them that is readily available. I think their long-time-to-flowering-age makes them less attractive as a research subject!
And I just noticed in the spring picture above that the florets seem to be growing in a spiral! Logical perhaps because of the vine's twining growth habit, but I had never noticed that effect on the flowers before just now!
Anyone else out there fascinated with these plants....?
User
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoRelated Discussions
Chinese wisteria summmer bloom
Comments (4)Yes, it's fragrant both times. The fragrance isn't strong though - it doesn't carry far. Normally the spring bloom is so profuse that the scent is noticeable in the surrounding area in early morning. The summer bloom is considerably less profuse so the scent isn't obvious unless you sniff the individual flowers. The young Japanese wisteria flowered for the first time this spring - its scent is really nice too....See Morechinese blue wisteria - blooming issues
Comments (1)as they bloom best when stressed, as by pruning, etc. Here is a link that might be useful: chinese wisteria info...See MoreWisteria Bloomed All Summer!?
Comments (2)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....See MoreChinese wisteria and hardy hibiscus
Comments (15)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!...See Morewoodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agowoodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
5 years agoCamp. - when we walked the dog this morning, I took some pictures of the nice magnolia nearby that is reblooming now:
The southeast section has the most flowers - here's a closer view of that area:
And here's a picture I took in May when it was doing its usual spring bloom - so the summer bloom is sparse, but nice to see!
If your seedling is doing a rebloom now, that probably bodes well for future shows from it!
This morning some of the wisteria blooms were looking more like their spring version - and they were pumping out lots of scent. Walking across the front porch, the wisteria scent was lovely.... Odd situation, but I'll take it....! :-)
skibby (zone 4 Vermont)
5 years agowoodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
5 years ago
skibby (zone 4 Vermont)