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My wisteria has died after 20 years...or has it?
Bill_and_Ben
Posts: 161
in Plants
We installed a deck in 2001 and planted a wisteria in a purpose made hole in it. It's been fabulous from very shortly after planting with loads of racemes every year. We prune it twice a year as recommended.
All looked fine this year as buds appeared but it then just stopped growing and we have no idea why. Previous experience is that they are quite hard to kill as we've removed two others when we remodelled our garden in 2014 and both still start to grow back every year.
This is how it looked in April last year:
And this is now:
It's planted in a hole in the deck and the trunk is now almost filling the hole but we figured it gets water from the roots and also the water runs down through the deck boards.
Any ideas why this might have happened? Given it's just stopped growing should I assume it it never going to recover and chop it down or is it worth giving it another year in case something changes? This is a south facing wall so warm. We have another on the east facing wall (to the left of this photo) which is newer and has bloomed as normal in April/May.
Here's a photo taken last November showing the planting hole (which the trunk takes about 75% of the surface space up now). Next door's cat uses the trunk as a scratching post but I wouldn't expect that to kill it.
All looked fine this year as buds appeared but it then just stopped growing and we have no idea why. Previous experience is that they are quite hard to kill as we've removed two others when we remodelled our garden in 2014 and both still start to grow back every year.
This is how it looked in April last year:
And this is now:
It's planted in a hole in the deck and the trunk is now almost filling the hole but we figured it gets water from the roots and also the water runs down through the deck boards.
Any ideas why this might have happened? Given it's just stopped growing should I assume it it never going to recover and chop it down or is it worth giving it another year in case something changes? This is a south facing wall so warm. We have another on the east facing wall (to the left of this photo) which is newer and has bloomed as normal in April/May.
Here's a photo taken last November showing the planting hole (which the trunk takes about 75% of the surface space up now). Next door's cat uses the trunk as a scratching post but I wouldn't expect that to kill it.
My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK
0
Posts
Keep watering all thru summer because even in heavy rain with all that decking it will be going short even if you expand the hole.
@fidgetbones I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'Has the decking ring barked it?'. There's still a gap all around the trunk and none is actually against the wood of the decking...yet.
@Obelixx I think the wisteria will be going before making larger holes in the deck! I'm not overly happy with this wisteria as pruning it twice a year requires going up ladders and we're not getting any younger to take such risks. The one on the back of the house has two bedroom windows overlooking it so we can prune from above as well as below which is easier and safer. I am minded to lose this wisteria anyway and grow something more manageable as we get into years when I don't want ladders in use! I did call a gardener in May and ask if he could prune it in June. Earliest he could do was September! So my husband was back up the dreaded ladder.
I scraped the bark and it looks green underneath so there is hope maybe. Here are photos showing the size of trunk to hole and where I scraped the bark.
I have 2 inherited wisteria which are on single storey walls so I only need a ladder to get up to cut any stems going up behind gutters or trying to sneak under tiles. I am not precious about counting back to 7 nodes in the July prune, nor 2 in the February prune.
Come June, all the first lot of flowers have dropped, sporadic re-flowering has started and long whippy shoots start forming. They do that all summer and get shortened all summer, generally with a handy pair of secateurs and occasionally I get out the pruning saw or loppers if a thicker branch needs cutting back or re-shaping.
It would be easier to prune it now whilst you can see what you are doing.
It will either kill or cure it!
I have recently planted a white wisteria floribunda to grow along a waist high fence round the veg plot. I watered it regularly all thru that cold, dry April and it is now taking off.