You can tell flower buds from foliage - the flowers look like hops like you say, rounded. The foliage buds are flatter (you'll get to know the difference). You have flower buds showing in your picture so fears about waiting 7 years for it to flower (that's what I heard it can take) are not an issue.
What worries me though is that you are thinking of putting it in a pot. I have just inherited a wisteria that is probably 15 or so years old and I've built a pergola that's nearly 2m wide by about 5-6 m long in very sturdy wood that you'd use for roofing to carry it. I expect it to fill the pergola by the end of the year.
Wisteria is a massive plant, the smaller one is the American, Wisteria Frutescens which might be ok in a pot at a push. You can keep it cut back of course - when we viewed the house in May last year, the previous owners kept the wisteria chopped off at about 4 ft high. We moved in in June and it was half way up the house, by winter it was at the rafters.
I'd see if there's somewhere in the ground it can go if you want to make the most of it and for future-proofing. Also make sure your support is sturdy - there's evidence that it has broken the wires and bent the metal wall pegging that the original people who planted mine put in.
tetley , wow yours really has grown quickly !!! i would very much prefer it to be in the ground but it is going on the front of the house and we are virtually on the pavement bar about 1.5m ( at it's widest )of brick paving so it has to go in a pot, i have bought as big a pot as i could find. My husband is a builder and over secures everything so i will tell him anyway about the support issue, we have a balcony on the first floor so that is very sturdy and i plan to run it along there so that should help alot. The nearest bit of the garden it could go in (our garden runs along side of our house not behind it) is about 10ft away from where i want to position it but there is no way to bridge over the access gate to the garden without it being in the way of the entrance, i did try and overcome this issue but it just won't work unfortunately, thanks for all the tips though, i have been out in the rain looking at it just now and does definitely look to be flower buds so fingers crossed they come to something, the gc did say it looked as if it had got neglected at the back which is why they reduced it so much for me and with the promise of my money back if it doesn't recover, i can complain at all
If you look at the first photo the nearest piece of planting ground is to the right of that fence panel then there is the gate. Through the gate is the front of the house on the left there isn't any way to bridge the plant over the gate or is there ?
Yeah, it was a bargain Sanjy that's for sure - I bought an American Wisteria for the neighbour who helped me build the pergola and that was £40 so a tenner is a scoop!
Mine was planted by a gardener 14 years ago then non-gardeners moved in and saw it as a problem, they just cut it back to nothing every year so letting it loose (they were leaving) must have given it a ticket to go mad!
I currently see my wisteria as the star of the garden, they are fabulous aren't they?
thank you, i love them and have always wanted one, i went to another gc before the one i bought it at and they were £50 there so i'm glad i waited, i just said to the lady " i really don't want to pay £40 for it so how much do you want for this half dead twig?" she laughed
I planted and left behind an American Wisteria when I moved and was so excited to get a "proper" one at the new place. I could see that it had outgrown its original fixings so I mentioned to a neighbour that I needed a pergola and he happened to be a carpenter and retired and voila, I have a fabulous pergola that my plant can't wait to fill. I feel very lucky.
NPK is short for Nitrogen - Phosphorus - Potassium, the three main components of chemical fertilizers.
The general rule is that Nitrogen promotes lush foliage, phosphorus root development, and Potassium induces ripening of the tissues, blooming and fruiting.
The numbers refer to how much of each ingredient is included in the mix, in relation to the others. So 6 - 6 - 6 is a balanced mix, while for example for tomatoes or pelargoniums, where you want lots of flowers and fruit, you'd use, perhaps a 6 - 6 - 8.
I only use liquid fertilizers as a "pick me up" to get pot plants started when they are a bit low in their spirits, but it's useful to know which kind .
The NPK number-numbr-number thingy is usually written somewhere on bottles of fertilizer, often at the back. If not just look for a "general" fertilizer, not the pelargonium-tomato kind.
I think also that you can definitely try having the wisteria in a large pot, at last for some years... it will never become as big as specimen in the ground, and eventually it will probably become somewhat tired (that is true for all pot plants), but you should get some years of prettiness from it, before planting it out.
Just be careful, that wisteria planted in good soil are really big muscular plants and will eventually crumple up anything they grow on.
Oh, when I say don't use a tomato frtilizr, I mean at the bginning, when you want it to recover some "body weight" before it starts working hard for you. In future years, you can use tomato type fertilizer if you keep it in a pot, to make sure it makes less growth and blooms profusely.
Thank you Katherine, ive just been out and checked the pot i bought, it was a terracotta colour but it was the biggest i could find so i spray painted it with a grey textured stone paint and it looks great and matches my other pots in the front so i'm really pleased with it.
well i have planted it, although it had a lot of roots they were very fragile and just came away if i touched while moving the root ball into position, any idea why? i got the impression from the gc that it had been top dressed and had a good soaking probably from being dried out and neglected.
I also serpentine layered a very low down small branch, so it's a wait and see game on all fronts.
does any one know how long they take to root? i did use a little hormone gel in the cuts to help it along
Posts
You can tell flower buds from foliage - the flowers look like hops like you say, rounded. The foliage buds are flatter (you'll get to know the difference). You have flower buds showing in your picture so fears about waiting 7 years for it to flower (that's what I heard it can take) are not an issue.
What worries me though is that you are thinking of putting it in a pot. I have just inherited a wisteria that is probably 15 or so years old and I've built a pergola that's nearly 2m wide by about 5-6 m long in very sturdy wood that you'd use for roofing to carry it. I expect it to fill the pergola by the end of the year.
Wisteria is a massive plant, the smaller one is the American, Wisteria Frutescens which might be ok in a pot at a push. You can keep it cut back of course - when we viewed the house in May last year, the previous owners kept the wisteria chopped off at about 4 ft high. We moved in in June and it was half way up the house, by winter it was at the rafters.
I'd see if there's somewhere in the ground it can go if you want to make the most of it and for future-proofing. Also make sure your support is sturdy - there's evidence that it has broken the wires and bent the metal wall pegging that the original people who planted mine put in.
Hope this is helpful,
T
thanks gardenmaiden
tetley , wow yours really has grown quickly !!! i would very much prefer it to be in the ground but it is going on the front of the house and we are virtually on the pavement bar about 1.5m ( at it's widest )of brick paving so it has to go in a pot, i have bought as big a pot as i could find. My husband is a builder and over secures everything so i will tell him anyway about the support issue, we have a balcony on the first floor so that is very sturdy and i plan to run it along there so that should help alot. The nearest bit of the garden it could go in (our garden runs along side of our house not behind it) is about 10ft away from where i want to position it but there is no way to bridge over the access gate to the garden without it being in the way of the entrance, i did try and overcome this issue but it just won't work unfortunately, thanks for all the tips though, i have been out in the rain looking at it just now and does definitely look to be flower buds so fingers crossed they come to something, the gc did say it looked as if it had got neglected at the back which is why they reduced it so much for me and with the promise of my money back if it doesn't recover, i can complain at all
If you look at the first photo the nearest piece of planting ground is to the right of that fence panel then there is the gate. Through the gate is the front of the house on the left
there isn't any way to bridge the plant over the gate or is there ?
Yeah, it was a bargain Sanjy that's for sure - I bought an American Wisteria for the neighbour who helped me build the pergola and that was £40 so a tenner is a scoop!
Mine was planted by a gardener 14 years ago then non-gardeners moved in and saw it as a problem, they just cut it back to nothing every year so letting it loose (they were leaving) must have given it a ticket to go mad!
I currently see my wisteria as the star of the garden, they are fabulous aren't they?
Good luck, hope "she" settles in well.
thank you, i love them and have always wanted one, i went to another gc before the one i bought it at and they were £50 there so i'm glad i waited, i just said to the lady " i really don't want to pay £40 for it so how much do you want for this half dead twig?" she laughed
I planted and left behind an American Wisteria when I moved and was so excited to get a "proper" one at the new place. I could see that it had outgrown its original fixings so I mentioned to a neighbour that I needed a pergola and he happened to be a carpenter and retired and voila, I have a fabulous pergola that my plant can't wait to fill. I feel very lucky.
NPK is short for Nitrogen - Phosphorus - Potassium, the three main components of chemical fertilizers.
The general rule is that Nitrogen promotes lush foliage, phosphorus root development, and Potassium induces ripening of the tissues, blooming and fruiting.
The numbers refer to how much of each ingredient is included in the mix, in relation to the others. So 6 - 6 - 6 is a balanced mix, while for example for tomatoes or pelargoniums, where you want lots of flowers and fruit, you'd use, perhaps a 6 - 6 - 8.
I only use liquid fertilizers as a "pick me up" to get pot plants started when they are a bit low in their spirits, but it's useful to know which kind
.
The NPK number-numbr-number thingy is usually written somewhere on bottles of fertilizer, often at the back. If not just look for a "general" fertilizer, not the pelargonium-tomato kind.
I think also that you can definitely try having the wisteria in a large pot, at last for some years... it will never become as big as specimen in the ground, and eventually it will probably become somewhat tired (that is true for all pot plants), but you should get some years of prettiness from it, before planting it out.
Just be careful, that wisteria planted in good soil are really big muscular plants and will eventually crumple up anything they grow on.
Oh, when I say don't use a tomato frtilizr, I mean at the bginning, when you want it to recover some "body weight" before it starts working hard for you. In future years, you can use tomato type fertilizer if you keep it in a pot, to make sure it makes less growth and blooms profusely.
Thank you Katherine, ive just been out and checked the pot i bought, it was a terracotta colour but it was the biggest i could find so i spray painted it with a grey textured stone paint and it looks great and matches my other pots in the front so i'm really pleased with it.
thanks for the explanation for the fertiliser.
well i have planted it, although it had a lot of roots they were very fragile and just came away if i touched while moving the root ball into position, any idea why? i got the impression from the gc that it had been top dressed and had a good soaking probably from being dried out and neglected.
I also serpentine layered a very low down small branch, so it's a wait and see game on all fronts.
does any one know how long they take to root? i did use a little hormone gel in the cuts to help it along
cheeky bump