Wisteria hysteria

Climber’s time to twine and shine

FEW plants add elegance and romance like wisteria.

This gorgeous climber has twining stems loaded with heavy bunches of fragrant white, pink, blue, or purple flowers that drip from branches from late April to June.

Flowers appear at the same time as the leaves and once established it grows strongly. It will need pruning twice a year in July or August and again in February.

In the first two years, the aim is to prune and train it to create a framework of stems.

You need to carry out summer pruning to control those long, whippy shoots and encourage them to become flowering spurs. In the first winter, reduce the main stem to 75cm above the side branches and tie the strongest main branches on to wires. After flowering, cut the side shoots back to three to five buds from the main branches and trim so the plant fits its wall space. There are two types, Japanese and Chinese, and both grow well in English gardens. You can spot the difference in the way they twine around supports. Chinese wisteria, or Wisteria sinensis, will grow anti-clockwise but the Japanese, Wisteria floribunda, goes clockwise. As wisteria grows to enormous proportions – up to 10m – it is ideal for covering pergolas and sunny walls. They are not self-clinging and need something to twine around. So provide it with a strong support, which could be tiers of horizontal wires fixed 30-45cm apart on to house walls.

Another way is to grow wisteria through a large tree or pergola. The floribunda varieties are your best bet.

They come in a range of subtly different mauves, purples and pinks. Some, such as Royal Purple, have more blue in their tone.

Wisteria can be grown in pots and trained over a frame into a tree shape. The ideal ones are those with shorter flower spikes such as the floribunda variety Domino.

If you buy a wisteria now, choose a named variety or one with the graft union – the knobbly bit on the stem – 7-10cm above the base of the trunk.