White Wisteria

Hello growers.

We have three very big wisterias around the house, all three around 30 years in age. Two beautiful blue ones that literally make the walls look like a blue rain of flowers is falling from them, coincidentally in Holland we call wisteria "blauwe regen" which literally means blue rain. Problem is that we also have a white one, or at least we suspect it to be white, it just won't bloom!! Whatever we do, it won't bloom!

My mother planted all three when I was still happily wiggling away somewhere between my fathers legs and she told me she always makes sure she buys a Wisteria with a flower on it allready to make sure it will bloom. So our white one was also bought wearing flowers. How it now has gone for 30 years without producing any is beyond me.

What can I do?
Prune back hard and feed a lot of low nitrogen high phosphor fertiliser over the summer into next year?

Ps. The blue ones have amazing twisted and aged branches. Are they easy to air layer?

Bonsai Kas wrote:(...) Are they easy to air layer?

Yes, very easy.

Bonsai Kas wrote:Hello growers.

So our white one was also bought wearing flowers. How it now has gone for 30 years without producing any is beyond me.

Do you prune your white one?
-Jay

We prune them quite regularly.
They grow against the house so we guide them and prune them so they don't overgrow parts of our house where we don't want them. We never prune them heavily though, once every few years we'll thin it out a bit and guide some young shoots. I think the white one is pruned more heavily then the two blue ones since the wall it's growing against is smaller. What I've read though is that pruning actually stimulates flowering. Maybe the soil is too rich or it needs a boost of supplement it's missing now?

Some more recent wisteria cultivars (Texas purple for instance) seem much more willing to flower year over year with almost no pruning and others must have that late season hacking back to remove the hormone directing vegetative growth in order to favor the hormone that directs the production of flower buds for the following spring. The correct pruning at the correct time is the key.

-Jay

Hi,
I believe heavy poor draining soil helps flowering in wisteria, high quality freely draining soil promotes lots of leafy growth I believe. We bought a 'blue' one that has flowered and is actually a white one ! all the flower buds are on the older sections of last years growth. it was planted august last year, grew extensions up to 6 feet long before winter and has flowers on the first foot (12") of all the shoots. The longer extension growth just has leaf buds.

The huge ancient wisteria of kew gardens is pruned back to a few buds on each branch i think - i was watching Alan Titchmarsh talking about it a while back.

cheers Marcus

If you want flowers on wisteria, you have to give lots and lots of water and little fertilizer nitrogen, with bonsai, to have a lot off flowers, the pot is placed in a plate filled with water from april to september , flowering is caused by asphyxiation of the roots , but in open ground , it's more difficult .

abcd wrote: flowering is caused by asphyxiation of the roots .

Now that's very interesting. Do you have a link or a source providing further information about this technique?
-Jay

Well our wisteria's are in full ground. But the catch is that they are also rooting under the pavement and the garden so any soil related fixes are not an option, unless we decide to break open everything around it just to get one out of three wiseria's flowering. Needless to say that's not a real option.

The drowning the roots approach is an interesting one but I would really like to see a source before I even think about trying. It's not uncommon for plants to need a bit of desperation as a last push into flowering. This is also why im inclined to push the Potassium and Phosphorous instead of adding more nitrogen. If I know anything for "sure" adding more nitrogen to the soil will actually make it less prone to flowering. After all flowering is a survival strategy and with many of the fruit trees we have and had in our garden you would see that in their last years they would literally flower themselves to death. My theory is that they spend all their last energy on trying to get as much offspring as possible. Our apple tree is starting to do the same, it's just white with flowers now, when the apples come I will thouroughly thin it out since losing it will deprave my bonsai from their favourite shadow spot. Rest assured we generally thin our fruit bearing trees out so they don't flower and fruit to death but we had two plums (grafted and cultivated for as much fruit as possible) who were just unstoppable. They gave us loads, LOADS, of fruit but didn't last more then 30 years.

The thing that bugs me most is that the blue ones are oozing with beautiful flowers and foliage every year and are in perfect health. The white one is just as vigorous but it just doesn't produce any flowers!?

From a mix of reading and experience, I believe that correct pruning is the answer to getting mature Wisteria to bloom. Cut back all new long shoots to just one or two internodes at the end of the season. This is a really hard cut back and should induce flowering. You need to make it produce short flowering spurs.

For the one of mine in the ground, I've never fed it, or watered it and it blooms copiously every year.

Photographie off my wisteria, 40 yeras old, trunk diameter : 8 inches , high : 20 inches , with the technic off water into a plate under the pot, with water under the pot from april to september, flowers appears in april, july and august , every year.
The roots developement , so buds with foils is more low , flowers appears more easy.
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Thank god the blue one is doing fine as usual this spring


I'm pruning the white one hard next spring, I hope it helps.
Thanks for the advice guys

Bonsai Kas wrote:Thank god the blue one is doing fine as usual this spring


I'm pruning the white one hard next spring, I hope it helps.
Thanks for the advice guys

Absolutely gorgeous wisteria I have one I collected from a friend thats in a pot training and two going up our hammock posts. Can only hope they will look this nice.

The general (and there are a LOT of variations) pruning technique for wisteria is to wait till mid summer then cut back to 3-4 buds on this years growth, then revisit the tree in late winter and reduce this further back to two buds, these will be your flowering spurs for that spring.

-Jay

Thank you for the advice Mr Gonzo.
I will do exactly that this year. From everything I've read, hard pruning like you advised comes closest to a solution that might work.

Even if you need to follow this pruning routine for a season or two without flowers keep at it and you should have success. Keeping Wisteria is a not a spectator sport but I have smelled white wisteria that have floored me with their scent.

Best of luck
-Jay

Yes Wisteria smell quite intoxicating, a lovely thick sweet scent.
This one is still not at full strength but when I open my window during the day the whole room smells heavily of flowers when I come home.