I have a wisteria that is now 12 years old. It is large (10 feet high and a 4-6 inch diameter main trunk) and runs along (in two directions) a 15 x 10 ft railing on a deck. I do not know if it is Japanese or Chinese, late or early flowering. It has only bloomed once in all the time I have had it and then it was ONE poor, sorry, pathetic, puny looking bloom. (It's purple.) I have pruned in the spring, I have pruned in the fall, I have pruned in the winter, I have pruned in mid June (this was the only time it bloomed)-I have repeated the June prune with no further success, I have pruned in spring AND fall, I have not pruned, and I have done any number of combinations of pruning. It get about the same amount of water as the roses, it gets good full sun on the branches and produces masses of leaves. We have all the woody plants "fed" by a yard company by root injection once a year but have not fertilized it other than that. What am I not doing right? Someone told me he got so frustrated that he went out and tried to beat his to death, after which it bloomed nicely, I, however, am not strong, nor energetic nor into plant abuse and hesitate to use this method.
Hi Irish, Glad to hear you aren't into 'plant abuse', but there is actually some truth in the abuse getting the desired results. When a plant is stressed and faced with possible death, it will often bloom so it can produce seeds and, therefore offspring. In your case the simple solution would be to stop the injection of fertilizer. Fertilizing vines, other then some annuals, results in lots of green leaf growth and very few, if any blooms. Bet you didn't think it would be this simple, eh? Here's some interesting and, hopefully, helpful info on wisteria. http://www.rippingale.com/~meacham/wisfaq.html http://www.plantamnesty.org/pruning_topics/pt_wisteria.htm Wishing you lush blooms next year! Newt
I have heard it said that to induce blooming on a stubborn wisteria, you should whack the main trunk a few times with a baseball bat. I have never tried it, but one thing that has worked well for me is to do some root pruning. Sink a spade or shovel blade in the ground to its full depth a few places around the trunk a couple feet out.
Flowerless wisteria and mockoranges are a chronic source of complaint. If yours had never bloomed I would suggest it just wasn't old enough, a giant woody vine like this perhaps needing as long to reach sexual maturity as a tree might. However, since it has bloomed a little maybe it's a climate thing, the summers not being hot enough for this particular seedling to bud up well. Perhaps they vary in this respect, some flowering well in less-than-blazing climates and others not.
I would try Newts advice on this one IrishAirWolf. Abundant green growth and no blooms sounds like too much nitrogen.
