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Wisteria advice needed please!

fenellaessenfenellaessen Posts: 4
in Problem solving

Hi

We have a mature wisteria (I don't know how old it is as it was in the garden when we bought the house 7 years ago but I suspect it is old as the trunks are well established and quite large) but it has recently suddenly died. I suspect the dry hot summer is the cause (I hadn't appreciated the need for plenty of watering of it) but now there are lots of new shoots/vines/runners growing from the roots. What should I do? Should I cut these back/off to see if growth is then encouraged further up the original plant/stem/trunk? Do I cut them all off except perhaps the largest and try and encourage it to grow upwards (at the moment, they are all growing along the ground (which is grassed)? Or do I leave them all and let nature take its course? Any advice would be much appreciated as I'm not particularly green-fingered but would love to save the wisteria if possible... Thank you.

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Posts

  • IamweedyIamweedy Posts: 1,364
    If it is producing new shoots it certainly indicates it's still alive.  
    Someone who knows more about them there will be along soon.




    'You must have some bread with it me duck!'

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    @Obelixx has grown good wisteria ... hopefully she’ll see this ...

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • gardeninglily1gardeninglily1 Posts: 424
    Have you any pics to show? I suspect that you may have to cut down the wisteria by at least a third but a picture would help us to help you   :)
  • fenellaessenfenellaessen Posts: 4
    Thank you for your replies. I'll try and get some photos later and post them here.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    I have inherited 2 very good wisterias here with big strong trunks and plenty of flowering stems and grew another, younger one in my last garden.   Never had experience of one dying off though.  Our two didn't weaken at all in last year's drought - 20.5cm of rain measured over 11 months so maybe yours have had some other trauma or are used to more rain.

    Ours regularly send shoots out from all over the trunk and base but we cut them off to keep the trunks clear.  I expect they could be trained up to replace a dead main stem if yours doesn't recover.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • fenellaessenfenellaessen Posts: 4
    Thank you obelixx. I think i’m going to try and train a couple of the shoots to grow upwards and see how that goes. 
    The trauma may well have been our doing too - the wisteria was growing over a garden shed that was in danger of collapsing so we had to remove the shed and then heavily prune the wisteria to remove a lot of the sheer weight and bulk of it. This was about 6 months ago and given that the wisteria had flowered in Spring following the pruning, I thought it had survived it, but maybe not...? 
    Anyway, some pics are attached. Thank you for your advice - much appreciated.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    edited August 2018
    Your wisteria is definitely not dead!  I would carefully pick up and tie  the long horizontal shoots to the main trunk/branches, which should then twine around them. I would though cut off that long low branch on the left as it looks like it will get in the way and perhaps one or two others that are not growing up and over in the shape that you want. You may find that one or more of the new shoots have rooted into the ground, in which case I would put a cane into the ground carefully next to the rooted bit and tie the end of the shoot up to the cane. In the spring, you could then sever the shoot the other side and dig it up - hey presto more wisteria plants. It also wouldn't hurt next spring to clear the grass around the main trunk by at least a foot or two and give it a good mulch of manure as wisteria are very greedy plants.    
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • Papi JoPapi Jo Posts: 4,254
    Lizzie27 said:
    It also wouldn't hurt next spring to clear the grass around the main trunk by at least a foot or two and give it a good mulch of manure as wisteria are very greedy plants.    
    Actually, I've always heard that over-feeding wisteria can cause more foliage and less flowers. I have a strong specimen with lots of flowers in season and have never ever fed it. Mulch, yes, feed no.
    Apart from that detail I quite agree with the sound advice given by @Lizzie27.
  • fenellaessenfenellaessen Posts: 4

    Thank you everybody for your wise and sound advice. I'm going to see if I can train some of the shoots up along the original trunk and prune back the low hanging branch. I'll also clear the grass around the base to make for easier watering and mulching.

    One final question - when is the best time of year to prune a wisteria?

    Thank you again

  • Papi JoPapi Jo Posts: 4,254
    fenellaessen said:
    One final question - when is the best time of year to prune a wisteria?
    https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=242

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