How tall is your ladder?

There are practical reasons that anything requiring a lot of maintenance can't get too high up in the air.

Mad_gallica, does this comment mean that you think it COULD get to3-4 meters in height? It seems to perhaps imply this...

Instead of trying to get it to go over six feet as a standard... I would opt to plant in a 10-14 foot pole with it for it to climb. A bit more work up front, but probably easier to control/groom as it gets bigger. And a pole there would guarantee you somewhere solid to lean an orchard ladder up on.

Here, I've seen it get to the top of a telephone pole. I have no idea how it would do in your very different climate.

Bart, mad-gallica has a good point. Wisteria would grow as high as you let it. Literally. But TRAINING it above head height would be a battle. And I doubt it would ever be self-supporting at the height you need. It is a rampant-growing, voracious, unstoppable force. Even on a pole, it would require pruning, or it would weep back down in a tangled mess, rooting at every single point it touches the ground. Wisteria is NOT something to deal with if you don't intend intensive training, and letting it grow tall enough to provide shade is an invitation to disaster. Not to mention that it will sucker madly if left to its own devices, and then climb and strangle, yes, strangle and kill, any other tree or shrub it gets into. Ask me how i know.

Your best bet, if you really, really want to go there, is with a VERY sturdy arbor. But I know your land is steep, and that's probably not an option. But wisteria simply is not a good subject for a semi-wild garden like yours and mine. I'm trying to eliminate the wisteria that started as a wee six foot standard (it was so pretty), that is now crawling into oak trees at least fifty feet away. I cut every sprout I see, and have even, gasp! used RoundUp. It keeps coming back, even after 10 years of trying to kill it. There was simply too great a bio-mass of the stuff, with too great a store of energy, for me to get ahead of it. At this point, I just try to keep the status quo. When I die, it will take over the garden (and the county) unless it's bull-dozed and put under a parking lot.

EDIT: Knowing what I know now, I'm convinced that anyone who actually has a wisteria standard, under control, in their garden, has nothing ELSE in their garden. It is that labor intensive. I'm not convinced that wisteria can be controlled in any environment short of an arid desert, lol.

We are still trying to get rid of wisteria which used to climb up our house - accd to my FIL, he used it as a teenager to climb up and get into the 3rd story old fashioned "sleeping porch" (which is on the third story of our house) when he was a teenager, and was coming home in the wee hours of the morning, and did not want his parents to know - they used to keep beds out there for when it was too hot. He was born in 1913, so this would have been in the late 1920s, early 1930s. When we moved in it was still climbing up the house, but not very pretty (if wisteria used to be on root stock, it might have been a root stock plant.). About 30 years ago we decided to take it out. Ha! My DH dug it, poisoned it, etc. etc., and it is still sprouting happily.

Jackie

I agree with @mad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY). The height is determined by the height of your ladder and your limit to how high you can/will climb. Even standards can get away from you and eat your universe. We used to sell them like mad at the beach. They CAN be really pretty, particularly if someone ELSE has to live with them.

The only wsy I have an Asian wisteria is in a contsiner

Bart, I'm trying to do some research on fast-growing, drought- and heat-tolerant trees. Since I was so adamantly against using wisteria, I thought I should say something positive, lol. But I don't remember what your minimum winter temperature is. I'm assuming you're at least the equivalent of a z8, but probably Z9? All of the following are hardy to at least Z8, heat loving, and drought tolerant.

There are several fast growing acacias ( A. salicina, A. stenophylla), the desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) and its hybrid with catalpa, Chitalpa x tashkentensis. All of these have lovely blooms in addition to growing rapidly. I've always coveted the chilopsis and chitalpa for my garden, but I get too MUCH water, even if they were fully hardy here. The chitalpa might overwinter, if I could keep it dry. Sigh.

The eucalyptus family has several candidates for your conditions, but with them, you'll have to research their possible invasiveness. They aren't much for flowers, but they do grow rapidly. They can also be a fire hazard. They are extremely flammable due to their high oil content. But if they aren't invasive where you are, a couple or three would provide VERY fast shade. You could inter-plant with other trees, and remove the eucalypts as the others mature.

A caveat: I've not grown any of the above, as they aren't hardy here. So I don't know their true tolerance to heat, other than they are all semi-tropical/tropical/desert plants. They reportedly are all fast growers. I also don't know their root structure, so I have no idea how close you could plant roses or shrubs without competition.

Chinese elm (Ulmus parviflora) is just a green blob, but it's probably the fastest growing besides the eucalypt species. It can grow upwards of five feet a year. It is recommended for hot, arid climates. It is an oddity in that some individuals are deciduous, others are evergreen, and no one knows why!

The American mesquite (several species) are also very fast growing, extremely drought tolerant, and actually don't grow well when irrigated. With abundant water, they grow very shallow root systems and are prone to blowing over. They MUCH prefer dry feet. The problem here is I have no idea if they are readily available in Italy.

I'm going to suggest a tree that you might have overlooked due to its ubiquitousness where you live: the fig. It is water hungry when young, but will survive with no extra irrigation once it is established. They can be pruned and limbed up as single-trunked trees that will rapidly grow 20-30 feet tall. However, figs do have roaming roots. They would be best suited if you have a place on the SW-W of your property where they could provide late evening shade, but be located away from your plantings. Of course there's the bonus of....FIGS. Roses and figs, figs and roses. Heaven will have both.

I'm sure you've considered the pines and cypresses, which are among the most drought tolerant, but they don't really form large canopies, so I didn't suggest them

I'm still looking, but as I find more trees suited to your conditions I'll check back in.

I believe winter temps where bartbart is can go below freezing in winter. Was it Tuscany? Although is gets very hot in summer, it's not a tropical or semi tropical vlimtate. It comes as a surprise to visit Tuscany in summer when it is boiling hot to see road signs warning about using snow chains.

Thank you all very much for your comments; this really helps me to think through the issue much more clearly.

John, floraluk is absolutely right. Here in Tuscany, in spite of the fact that we now suffer from such dreadfully hot summers (around 100 degrees Farenheit for weeks on end), the climate is not tropical or semi-tropical. Sad to say, winters are becoming shorter and less cold, but this is a recent tendency. Normal winters in the past have indeed gifted us with snow and ice. What's more; I am in nothern Tuscany, in the foothills of the Appenines, near the border with Emilia-Romagna, and my garden is on an exposed hillside at about 600 meters above sea level. Prato is the nearest large city to us, and down there, people DO have bougainvilleas, for example, but only growing in very sheltered spots on their houses. If not for this, I'd just get a Jacaranda-in a heart-beat! but I can't see risking it,maybe spending years trying to get it to grow, and then seeing it get zapped by a sudden return of cold weather. I did plant a chitalpa last fall, but they are supposedly hardy to -15 Celsius, whereas Jacaranda can't tolerate less than -5 C .

My own experience with wisteria is very different from most of what I read on Internet. Possibly because of our dry, dry summers and the poverty of my soil, I am finding it a struggle to get them to take off. I know that here they can eventually get quite big, but I really don't think that they are nearly aggressive as they seem to be in the southern USA,for example. What's more, the variety I have is Ikoyama Fugi, which is supposed to have a "contained" growth habit. So I may go for the pole idea. I do have a "Prolific" that I moved last fall because it refused to grow; it's in a spot where I could put up an arbour. But if I do decide on that rather than letting it, too, just grow up the pole, I think it will probably be enough-IF it really takes off-to cover such an arbour. In any case, I DO have 2 very tall orchard ladders, LOL!

Btw, I adore cypresses, and have many, and feel that there's always room for another of those beauties...

Bart, all the plants I mentioned are hardy to at least Z8, or 15F/-10C, some to Z7, some much lower (the Chinese elm is ridiculously hardy). If you have the time, I'd check each one specifically to see if it would survive for you. The least hardy (the eucalypts and mesquites) are actually more hardy the dryer your winters are, or the better the drainage, which you don't have a problem with, lol.

@Rosylady (PNW zone 8) thank you so much for those pictures! I’m in Seattle a d have two Wisteria in half whiskey barrels and have been questioning my decision as I keep hearing its a bad idea. I refuse to put them in the ground yet I love them so much! They are both healthy but not really blooming much though I think thats because they had a rough start and I’ve only really figured out how to properly care for them in the last few years.

With regards to the original topic I was going to suggest figs as well or maybe grape as another fast growing vine that provides dense shade, is fairly drought tolerant once established, and can grow as a standard given initial support .

Your wisteria looks fabulous, Rosylady!

Rosylady, you give me much encourament! What you write about your wisteria resonates with my own observation of mine: lack of water and deep soil REALLY limits their growth.

John, I will look up your suggestions; I'm definitely on the look-out for fast-growing trees. But I think I'll pass on the eucalyptus-for some reason I just don't like it.

Rosy, please tell us what kind of potting medium youre using and whether you repot or root prune. I cant use terra cotta in my zone 6 winters unfortunately.

I'm glad you all enjoyed the wisteria pictures. I love wisteria so much, but don't have the right space for it in my garden yet...sighting a wisteria takes planning, for all the reasons stated by the posters above!

The potting medium is bagged potting soil from our local nursery....I think they use EB Stone brand. I don't think wisteria is picky about soils. I have never root pruned. I was planning on doing it when the wisterias seemed to be blookming less or declining, but every year they are more spectacular! I've not had any roots grow out the drainage hole in the bottom (something I was worried about). Each season there a few suckers that grow from the base of the plants, and I just pull them out.

I currently have helichrysum planted as a companion and it also does very well and the wisteria doesn't min it at all. They do very well together as they are both low water plants and very tough. In the past I've had pansies, when there was more soil without wisteria roots available in the pots.

For fun....here are two pictures from a few years ago, the first showing both wisterias at once. I originally had them on this gravel terrace before I moved them into their current home. As you can see, they are hooked up to drip irrigation...they seemed to like being watered regularly, but they never got rampant. I watered them here because they were sitting on dry gravel. In their current spot, the pots are sitting in an irrigated flowerbed, so I think more moisture is wicking up from the ground into the pots.

I have heard that wisteria blooms better when under stress. I wonder if being potbound and dry actually helps them flower more? Kind of like growing agapanthus in pots.