Talkback: Pruning wisteria

We started wisteria growing up a post to the top of our pergola and it is just now reaching the canopy to start spreading. I haven't pruned it at all because I don't want branching below the canopy. This should work, shouldn't it? (Might take longer to get lots of blooms, I realize.)

I'm interested in growing a wisteria in a large pot. Please can you tell me how large a container your wisteria is in, and how tall it is? Thanks

Kylee - I have two rather small potted wisteria that I too would like to grow over my pergola, how large were yours? Mine hardly seem to have grown at all over the last year. At this rate reaching the canopy will take 10 years!

I have recently planted a wisteria in my garden, it is only about a metre high how high should it grow before I need to prune it.

Reply to chillipasta: Pruning and training depends on how you want to grow your wisteria. Most people want to train a wisteria to cover a wall or pergola, so you need to train the main leading shoot in the desired direction. As side shoots develop these can be tied in to produce more of the main framework. Future summer and winter pruning aims to shorten side shoots developing from these main stems of the framework, encouraging flower buds to form at the base of every sideshoot. Just picture a long horizontal stem trained along the wall of your house with flowers cascading down from in at regular intervals along the entire length.

i have a visteria that has been growing for about 15 years although i get plenty of foliage the most flowers are about six a year . i prune it about twice a year . its growing in the groundand is very healthy ,any help to get more flowers , i would be most grateful

I'm growing wisteria Caroline over a dead tree which I use to hang my bird feeders on. It is three years old and has flowered for the first time this year. The only problem is that I lost a large stem full of flowers when it split where it had twisted tightly around a branch. Will this happen again and what can I do to stop it? Help!

planted a wisteria in ground soil a bit sand stone. about two years ago not had one flower on it plenty of leaves very disappointed help !!

Our wisteria, which covers the front of our house, is pruned once a year. It flowers profusely. Pruning twice a year is *not* essential, unless you are guided by book learning rather than experience.

I have a young American Wisteria (shorter blooms and less vigorous plant but no wait for blooms - typically American - instant gratification! :0)). Anyway, what I've found as I am getting to know the plant and how to prune it, is that last year's leader shoot tends to get frosted at the tip over winter. This makes the old leader become a side shoot to a more vigorous secondary side shoot coming off it in Spring that takes over as the leader. Does this make sense? Where two leaders contend, I take the most vigorous and chop the other at about 6-10 nodes to curb it and concentrate on the other one. Later I'll curb the shortened one again to about 3-6 buds. Only tried this about 3 times so far though so might change as I get to know more.

My lovely Wisteria has died, was smashed last year by a branch falling from a tree on the railway bank, didn't survive the battering, very sad about that.my poor bee's will have to take pot luck the apple tree is too high to fleece.

how long before i get flowers,plant two years old plenty of good strong healthy leaves but no flowers do i need to do anything else prune as required twice a year thanks

An elderly neighbour swears by a good feed of diluted Epsom Salts for her wisteria, I think twice a year. She also gets it pruned quite hard and it is absolutely full of the most heavenly scented, long racemes!

Alan Titchmarsh a couple of years ago in the magazine came up with a simple answer to pruning for the flowers or raciems to grow and that was. a foot and a finger. If you want to train the whips to a foot and tie them in. And to get flowers cut to a finger legnth to the cosest outward facing bud. Mine is now going nuts with flowers to this rule.

I have had a Wisteria trained up the side of my house for many years. It has masses of flowers, but it also has masses of foliage, which hides the flowers. I prune it twice a year, as advised, but it's rate of growth would put a Russian Vine to shame!

Has gardeners world gone crazy! why oh why idiotic poncey fashion parades is it really a gardening programme any more

Victor, I wonder sometimes if the Beeb is trying to attract younger people to GARDENING by things like you mentioned on tonight's programme and possibly "the cool wall" - a spin-off from another well known popular programme (perhaps the planners are thinking the "formula" might work here?) or are they thinking that it might attract young people to the PROGRAMME? So are they catering to a potential audience or their bread and butter like you and me? Not sure this particular forum is the place to discuss this but since you brought it up here, I'll add my two-penn'th. I like Toby, I like his style which is reminiscent of Geoff Hamilton who got me interested in gardening in the first place. I like Alys for the same reason - she's like the prodigy of Geoff Hamilton and Eddi Reader - recycling in Gardening ...with an edge!! ;0) From Gardener's World on a Friday night, I personally want recycling tips, propagation tips, information about the plants in my garden (maybe a "plant of the week" feature would be good?), same old stuff about composting, lawn-care, pruning tips is what I tune in for - I am looking for inspiration as to how I will spend my weekend. Entertainment is secondary really and when it becomes contrived and wastes my precious "fact-time" that could have been better filled with lovely details about things to tackle this weekend, I get annoyed (same as you do clearly!). What happened to the gardening programmes on the other sides on a Friday night? I used to be able to change to Channel 4 after GW had finished? Anyway, I started to think that I am out of date and not coping well with change but then they messed about with Countryfile too and made it "funky" in the same way and I decided that it's not me, it's a BBC high-level decision to formulae-alize programs to appeal to a younger/dumber audience (my guess) to sustain their existence long-term (I am a regular Countryfile viewer whom they lost with this policy but I'm sure they gained in the long run?). If the programmes I mention continue to lean towards entertainment rather than documentary (as I see it), I will just lose interest and tune off (complaining as I go..) because there is no benefit in me watching the programmes. I watch Gardener's World to rev me up for the weekend because I WILL be doing jobs anyway - I don't watch it as a substitute for things that I would like to do, but can't, because I have a hangover! Cor, you hit a nerve eh Victor? Perhaps this will be read by someone in BBC Planning (or passed to them) as a representative sample of the effect of the recent changes to Countryfile and GW on maybe 15 years(ish) of patronage from an older viewer?

I bought a cheap (£4.98) Wisteria from B&Q about 4 years ago, put it in a pot and just kept watering and feeding it. I decided I would attempt to turn it into a standard. Well, last year I had 3 racemes of flowers with a pretty scent. THIS year is a dream, I lost count of the racemes after 30. I did everything wrong that the books say, pruning off straggly bits when they get in the way, and keeping the 2 and a half foot 'trunk' clear of shoots. It is divine. I regularly water it, even when it rains, and it's top dressed with a bit of growmore and fresh compost in the spring. Through out the year it gets the odd bit of foliar feed when I remember. The best thing about it, is it can be moved to the back of the border when the flowers are finished.

Couldn't agree more about the new Gardners world approach. I used to work in TV and being the grand old age of 50 means I no longer count in the workforce or the audience!! The BBC is very happy to take your licence fee (paid in the main by the baby boomers who actually watch TV) and spend it trying to win an audience who like my son aged 22 who never watches and never will watch TV, AND don't pay for the bbc- the internet will kill TV eventually- but the trendy metropolitans who are speeding up the death of TV - they are so used to patronising young people that they assume you want to watch cringworthy Blue Peter items like that awful fashion thing, and treat their loyal audience like morons- you get the telly you deserve- and these people are paid a lot of money- YOUR money...so complain!

I reckon if you all feel so strongly about it, then take samantha's advice and complain directly to the bbc. And how about leaving these comments for those who want to discuss the topic of the blog?