First time at Wisteria, need some guidance/tips

I have about a year with this Wisteria, about 2 1/2 weeks it was %100 "naked", I have no idea how old it is, but it does not look too young for my noob eye. It is about 24" tall and about 5" diameter at soil level.

Can anyone provide me with some tips about what to do next with it? Should I reduce the foliage to encourage new growth ? I read, that there's not an specific Bonsai style for Wisterias, as long as I can accentuate its flowering, the style does not really matter, is this true? I also read that they are very thirsty trees, so I make sure to give it a good amount of water every night.

Thanks

Can anyone provide me with some tips about what to do next with it? Should I reduce the foliage to encourage new growth ?

Wisteria are one of the plants that make decent bonsai for about 2 weeks out of the year -- e.g. when they're blooming. After that, they become next to impossible to manage. No need to "encourage" new growth. By midsummer you should be getting 6 inches to a foot of new growth every day. Unless you devote a good deal of time every day to wisteria management, they're impossible to maintain in any shape at all. Mine get relegated to the back shelves and get loppped with hedge shears once a week to keep them from taking over and twining around my other trees.

I read, that there's not an specific Bonsai style for Wisterias, as long as I can accentuate its flowering, the style does not really matter, is this true?

Yes. In spades. Though, since wisteria are vines, I've always felt that cascade or weeping styles are most natural for them.

I also read that they are very thirsty trees, so I make sure to give it a good amount of water every night.

After midsummer until well into winter, I keep mine in fairly deep trays of water.

They love to be abused. The ONLY way I've found to make them bloom regularly is to both keep them severely rootbound in the pots, and to keep the roots soggy wet.

Here are a couple of mine from the last year they both bloomed profusely. You can already see the signs of unruliness as the leaves start to come out. https://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t201-a-couple-of-wisteria-sinensis-and-update

Dear alansou,

This is a well known and widely grown vine in my region.
So, I would like to give you some ideas depending on my previous experiences with this plant:
- Using ordinary bonsai soil mixture for this tree requires frequent moisture check in soil since it loves water.
- Increasing humic content of soil mixture will ease your efforts and reduce dehydration risk especially in hot seasons.
- I lost 2 wisterias 3-4 years ago due to giving water at nights, because giving water at nights has caused a formation of fungus especially in root system

Now I only have one wisteria, and I increased humic content of its soil mixture 2 years ago, and it is healthy and giving good flowers every spring

Mr Lewis I doth protest!!! 6" to a foot daily in the growing season is just too much of an exaggeration to swallow NO MAHOOKIN way do they put on more than an inch a day during the growing season ... which is say four months (ish) average 30 days to a month which is ONLY 120 inches per year!

Seems reasonable and fair to me

Does depend on your growing conditions. My wisteria grows 30' every summer, but then it is planted against a south facing wall and in the ground ;-)

Bonsai ones are a little slower, but you still have to cut them back to one or two buds regularly and water abundantly.

Kev Bailey wrote:Does depend on your growing conditions. My wisteria grows 30' every summer, but then it is planted against a south facing wall and in the ground ;-)

Bonsai ones are a little slower, but you still have to cut them back to one or two buds regularly and water abundantly.

THIRTY feet Kevin?????

Mike Jones wrote:Mr Lewis I doth protest!!! 6" to a foot daily in the growing season is just too much of an exaggeration to swallow NO MAHOOKIN way do they put on more than an inch a day during the growing season ... which is say four months (ish) average 30 days to a month which is ONLY 120 inches per year!

Seems reasonable and fair to me

I should have included a smile really.

Yes, thirty plus feet, cut back to six feet every autumn and growing up and over the three storey house and well onto the slates.

Out of their native environment, the Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) is a rampant grower. Six years ago, in December when I moved into the house I currently own, there was one growing on a pergola perhaps 10 feet from the house. By the time I decided to spray it with Roundup (June), it had grown up OVER the house and UNDER my shingles and was ripping them off. (The house needed re-roofing anyway and now has a relatively wisteria-proof aluminum roof.)

Anyway, I kid you not -- six inches to a foot if fertilized (which only a fool does to a wisteria anyway) and 6 inches whether or not.

The only vine that grows faster here in the SE USA is Kudzu -- the vine that ate the South. People swear they can see it grow. I, however, have better things to do.

(I am, by the way, still fighting that Wisteria. I has Roundup applied to it 2-3 times a summer, and has appeared 40 feet away from the site of the former pergola. Anyone who lives south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the USA should never, ever plant one. Just enjoy the ones which twin over and strangle the trees in the neighborhood. And if you have one, NEVER let it go to seed! EVER.)

I believe all your stories about Wisteria's growing speed.
This monster is a proof

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 , new branches will be short.
Let the plant growing from march to september , cut long branches only in september
Old wisteria bonsai 40 years old:
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