Hello from hot Australia (summer almost) I have been trying to get some answers re my wisteria, so I'm trying everywhere, my wisteria is about five years old and is all but dead, the foliage is scratchy and sparse, there were a few non descript flowers on it or on what hadn't been cut off by the plant hating neighbour on the other side of the fence, almost all of the wisteria had been cut back, the foliage which appeared is pitiful and the leaves curled up and not opening into proper leaves, up until this year it was thick and green with tons of blooms lush and thick, its awful now and the the branches are dead as a dodo ... has it been poisoned ?
Yes, unless there is a drought now that is worse than in prior years during which the plant has been in place an obvious assumption is that the neighbor burned it with chemicals. Confirming signs would be damage to leaves and stems that has particular characteristics of herbicide injury - as well as a lingering chemical odor.
Thanks Ron, the neighbour has some sort of aversion to plants and hates anything hanging over her side of the fence, she has cut off so many stems over the past year, I think she may have cut off many many long stems at the base over last autumn or even through the winter, we are into our third month of spring and the number of chopped off stems is amazing I didn't notice them during winter, now they are stuck in the trellis where she cut them all back , the actual plant is mostly dead, all the little branches etc all dead, there is one spot on the shed where she couldn't get to it which is doing well with normal growth and normal leaves, this dead part is around the thick trunk, the leaves remain curled and the foliage virtually non existent, there were a couple of flowers only, my other wisteria on a side fence is doing well, thick and growing as it should. If she poisoned it there would be no chemical smell now after winter and tons of rain, she could have poured Roundup or similar onto the trunk of the wisteria, could that make it have scratchy foliage and a few blooms and curled up leaves which wont open? pouring poison through the fence is a distinct possibility only there is no way of knowing. Strange how the very end of the fence where she couldn't get to is thick and doing well. I do suspect poisoning as this old lady would do this as she hates wisteria. Such a shame. Thank you.
Glyphosate is not the only herbicide in use by property owners. A neighbor of mine cut off and sprayed some shrubs on my place (without permission) with something this summer, the smell was around for weeks if not months. A neighbor on the other side sprayed some weeds near the property border, when I pointed out that he got it on some of the lilac that was planted by a previous occupant of his place (but looks to be on my property) he mentioned that the label said the product was effective for 12 months - as though it was on the order of a soil sterilant. Wisteria become large and aggressive if not pruned annually, knowledge of this may have been your neighbor's motivation. But you may have been having the same problem with her that I have been having with people here, that is my plants being damaged or destroyed without any prior arrangement having been made with me.
