Wisteria Plant


With its green foliage, fragrant purple blossoms, and a moderate amount of brown fruits, the wisteria plant is hard to miss, mainly during the spring season.

Green foliage, purple flowers spreading its fragrance in the air, and tiny brown fruits, there nothing better than this plant to decorate and beautify your landscape. Generally described as a perennial vine, these wisteria trees or plants grows mainly in the United States, their native land. They mainly grow during the spring season, and produce fruits and flowers throughout the summer seasons. These plants have a comparatively longer life span than most of the plants belonging to the same species. Also, the plant has a rapid growth rate, with a mature plant growing up to the height of 50 feet. If you are planning to plant a wisteria plant in your garden, then you have to know the correct ways of planting it, you should know how to care for it, how to prune it, and also what are the diseases that these plants suffer from.

Plantation
  • First you have to decide where you want to plant one. Choose places near ponds or any other water bodies, as they will help the plant to grow better.
  • Dig a hole which will be as deep as the root ball of the plant and three times as wide.
  • Put the root ball into the hole. If you are planting more than one plant, then keep them at a distance of 10 feet.
  • Now fill the hole halfway with soil and water. This is done to get rid of any kind of air pockets. Once the water drains out, fill the hole completely and water it once again.
  • Every spring, put some compost at the base of the plant. Put as much is required in order control the growth of weeds and conserve the moisture of the soil.
  • Early summer, when flower blossoms, prune the plant. The side shoots which branch out from the main stem need to be cut off and their length should be kept at around 6 inches.
Proper Care

Now that you have done the planting, you should know how to care for wisteria plan. There are two main ways of caring for the plant - mechanical support and wisteria pruning.

Mechanical Support
These plants are wall climbers and they grow up to a height of nearly 15 meters, and spread up to nearly 40 meters. Therefore these plants are extremely heavy as compared to the other wall climbing plants, and thus, when it comes to care for the plant, we should focus more on the mechanical support and the infrastructure which will hold up the plant. One method of mechanical support is threading a heavy gauge wire made of steel through the vine eyes and balance it with strainer bolts. The entire support should be strong enough to balance your own weight. If you are not sure about the weight, then just to be safe, add another line. These plants, after blossoming, tend to gain more weight. This task is done best during the winter seasons, when the foliage does not impair your visibility. Check the wire at least once a year for rusting. Install new lines when needed.

Wisteria Pruning
You should prune the plant at least twice a year, in order to display the vine and maintain it in proper condition. The first pruning should be done during early spring. Pruning is done to keep the plant in control, which would grown out of shape in previous summer. During this time, the plant may have grown a number of long thin shoots, and if you want to replace an old branch then you should carefully tie these young shoots as per the position you need. However, many consider these shoots a pain, and hence carefully cut them out, which leaves behind an uncluttered, well maintained plant. While cutting the young shoots, be careful that you leave an inch or two of the stem, as this will encourage the growth of the new buds.

Once the flowers have dried out, they have new shoots growing all over the place, at a quick rate. Few of these shoots need to be allowed to grow to extend the total coverage, but some of these shoots are nothing less than a pain. To extend the coverage of the plant, just tie the strongest shoots to the lines supporting the plant. You can even twist these around the wire, but why take the risk of snapping a good shoot just for the heck of some wire. Once you feel that your plant has covered the required area in your garden, you have to limit the growth of the plant, and also encourage the growth of the spring flowers. Converting a green shoot which grows a meter every week, to a short woody flower spine, asks for regular attention, mainly during the month of July and August. If you ignore this for too long, then your plant will be nothing less than a tangled ball of wool. You will have a tough time tidying it up. Approximately, six leaves away from the point of emergence of the new shoot, make the first cut. This cut need not be absolutely exact. Soon, you will have fresh growth from the shortened stub. You need to cut these within one or two leaf joints, regularly.

When the plant blossoms for the second time, the flowers are not as good as the first time. But leave them as they add to the beauty of your garden. Once the flowering is over, then again continue with the cutting the young, green shoots.

Plant Diseases

Crown Gall
It is probably the biggest wisteria disease that you need to worry about. In this disease, the root and the stem of the plant are affected. Rough galls of various sizes grow at the crown of the root, where the soil and the root system meets. If these galls are not removed, then they become black and hard.

Causes
These gall are caused due to bacteria, and this disease remains in the soil even after the plant has died. Thus, if your wisteria dies, then don't plant anything immediately, as even the new plant might be affected. Wait at least for a year before planting anything in the diseased soil.

Impact
You know that your plant is suffering from the crown gall disease, when the growth of the plant is stunted, when there are yellow or red leaves, and the plant is dying.

Action to be taken
If you see that the plant is suffering from crown galls, then remove the plant immediately. No plant, no spread of the disease. Also the tools that you have used to remove the plant need to be sterilized with a 20% bleach solution or % solution of potassium permanganate. This will check the growth of bacteria and prevent the spread of the disease when you plant more plants in the future using the same tools.

The wisteria plant, with its pink, purple or white flowers, can change the entire look of your garden, and if proper care is taken, then you will never face any problems with it.

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