Wisteria
i bought a wisteria two years ago and it has grown well up against the front of my house which has a south west aspect. However, I put a trellis up to support the young shoots and fed these shoots through the trellis. Now most of the stems are being restricted by the trellis i.e. they are trapped between the trellis and the house wall.the wisteria is now up to the top of the living room window and I plan to train it across the top of this. what would be the best solution re the stems trapped in the trellis, should I prune hard back and start again?
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The wisteria stems will harden and go woody as they mature so better to cut out the trellis than the stems although you should have shortened the longest, whippiest stems back to a couple of buds to encourage flowering.
Supports for training across the house are best done by screwing in vine eyes and tensioning wires between them. Tie in the stems rather than winding them round.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Trellis is not really suitable as it will eventually rot and your wisteria will come tumbling down (there was a thread about this happening to someone on the forum a year or two ago.) The usual way to support wisteria growing up a house wall is to use long vine eyes with galvanised wire stretched between them. The vine eyes are screwed into holes drilled into the brickwork into which you should put rawlplugs. I would put the vine eyes no more than a metre apart with 60cm spacing probably being better. You want a gap of at least 3-5cm between the wire and the wall, hence the need to use long vine eyes.
This sort of thing (other suppliers are available!):
http://www.screwfix.com/p/easyfix-zinc-plated-vine-eyes-x-100mm-10-pack/17685
http://www.screwfix.com/p/apollo-2-5mm-2-5mm-galvanised-garden-wire-x-25m/57999
Personally, I would try and remove the trellis complete with wisteria and then cut/saw through and discard the trellis to try and separate the two before fixing the wires and then tying the wisteria to the new support wires. Doing that would preserve the existing growth without having to cut it back although you may need to do that to some of it.
Ah, I see Obelix sent a similar reply while I was typing.
Last edited: 12 March 2017 10:16:52
Great minds Bob?
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Many thanks Bob and Obelisk, really helpful.