Has anyone got more experience with wisterias who could help here?
I have a client with a very old, at least 50 years, wisteria that was completely covering their roof. They wanted it cut right back, and their tree surgeon reduced it to below first-floor window height two years ago. I explained at the time that they were going to affect the plant's flowering by cutting it back by around 75%, but it's not flowered at all for the second spring now.
It's still very healthy, obviously throwing masses of new growth that I'm thinning and training in. What I can't understand is why the established branches that weren't cut back have stopped flowering?
I've now got a client who has forgotten that I advised them it would take years to recover, and are blaming me for not telling them it would stop flowering.
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Paul, would the following help from the esteemed RHS website (always carries a bit of weight ;-)
Drastic pruning
Some climbers and wall shrubs tolerate drastic pruning and can be cut down to approximately 30cm (12in) from ground level. This drastic pruning means that flowering will take several years to resume, but allows new green shoots arising from the base to be trained into a new and rejuvenated framework.
Examples of plants that re-grow well from drastic pruning include: Abelia, Acacia, Ampelopsis, Aristolochia, Azara, Campsis, Celastrus, Cissus, Clematis, Cotoneaster, Hedera (ivy), Osmanthus, Pyracantha, Ribes sanguineum, Rosa, Vitis and Wisteria."
Thanks. There's still masses of plant covering the front of the cottage, which is probably 12 or so metres wide, up to first-floor window height. It's this they are disappointed about losing the flowers from, as it wasn't affected by the hard pruning in their eyes. Despite me telling them it would take years to recover!
It's always been pruned correctly, perhaps I just need to train new growth in and gradually replace all the older stems. Good idea to run them along the ground, John.
Up here in North lands, where we care for a number of Wisterias, pruning them to six buds in mid summer and 4 buds in mid winter, we note that branches on South facing walls flower several weeks before West facing. And that they have been slow to emerge after the recent colder weather.
I hard pruned ours a few years ago, and gave it several feeds of potash.
Flowers a treat!