18 March 2024

Wisteria


The (unquestioned) beauty is deceptive.  Multiple comments at the Pics subreddit post attest to the destructive capabilities of Wisteria vines.

Reposted from 2018 to add this:


Image cropped for size/emphasis from the original in a gallery of homes with gardens at The Guardian.

12 comments:

  1. I remember admiring ivy covered buildings as a kid, and being told, yeah - it's pretty, but...

    When we bought our home, I spent so much time clearing English Ivy off the one side and found a sidewalk! It's a continuing fight to keep the ivy in check.

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  2. Oh my goodness, that comment section is a laugh riot. So funny.

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  3. True story: Used to live next door to a home with a huge wisteria vine. Had a day of intense heat after a mild spring, so I was cooling off on the porch. Heard a PING followed by a sharp pain in my leg. Then PING..PING....PING...... PING....PING interspersed by more sharp pains all over my body. Ran into the house thinking someone was shooting a BB gun at me. As I got ready to dial 911, I heard more PINGING on the window, and saw something ricocheting into the air. That's when I realized the wisteria pods were exploding open with the heat, shooting seeds all over the place! Several dozen more pods hit the windows and house over the next couple of hours, until sunset when it cooled down. This happened a few more times over the years, but never as intense as that first time.

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    Replies
    1. An interesting seed dispersal mechanism.

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    2. Common enough. Caragana does the same.

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  4. Interesting that in the UK it doesn't seem to have the invasive properties you experience, unlike Buddleia, which is everywhere.
    In Exeter we have a 45 yard Wisteria tunnel in a city park planted in the 1880s, and my photos gives some idea of the vines behaviour; https://www.flickr.com/photos/40143719@N06/5720249040/in/album-72157632749645445/
    cheers another phil

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  5. You can force a wisteria into blooming for a special occasion by stressing it. It's tradition here in the south to whip a wisteria vine with chains a few days before a wedding.

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    Replies
    1. ...like i've been tied to the whipping post...

      I-)

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    2. I was thinking the same thing. My parents had a wisteria vine that wouldn't bloom unless they hacked the roots with a shovel.

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  6. We want a post! We want a post! We want a post! We want a post!

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  7. The location is 10 Canning Pl in Kensington, London, and there's a nice 2022 image on Google street view, if you're interested, to see how it looks post-bloom. Here in Indiana we planted a Wisteria frutescens macrostachya ‘Blue Moon’ on an arbor made of 6x6 posts/beams. It's a native in our area, and is *supposed* to be less damaging. It's almost 3 years old and is now about 4 feet tall (started at 18 inches). We can't wait to see what happens this year. Now, the one mistake we did make is to plant a Tiger Eyes Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) about 2 feet from our fence line, 2 years ago. It's already spread 3 feet from the base, into both yards. Grrrr. It's pretty with its companion plants of darker varieties of heuchera, but yikes.

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    Replies
    1. https://www.google.com/maps/place/10+Canning+Pl,+South+Kensington,+London+W8+5AD,+UK/@51.4994259,-0.1876777,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x48760558d674f8a7:0xa5206c41cfc2a976!8m2!3d51.4994226!4d-0.1851028!16s%2Fg%2F11c2g__7vy?authuser=0&entry=ttu

      The sumac/coral bells pairing sounds attractive, but I bet the former will shade out the latter eventually.

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