When I was nine, our family moved to a new home in the Sammamish Valley that included a wonderful, if somewhat overgrown, garden that fostered my interest in horticulture. Near the back door, plopped in the middle of the lawn, was a strange, dense thicket of a plant that was a perfect place to hide, mere feet from where my mother was calling for me.
It was some time before I learned this monstrous green blob was a wisteria, left to its own devices with nothing to climb up. The new book, “Wisteria: The Complete Guide” by James Compton and Chris Lane, has enlightened me that wisteria can indeed be grown in a pleasing, shrubby form, but only with careful pruning that the specimen of my childhood never received.
Of course, wisteria are much better known as climbing vines magnificently draping from buildings, arbors, or even large trees. This book walks you through the many selections available, with excellent photographs to distinguish the many close shades of blue, lavender, and purple, and will help you manage one of these labor intensive but oh-so-spectacular prima donnas.
This is the third in a series of excellent Royal Horticultural Society monographs on garden worthy genera and like the others titles the natural history and environmental niche of the plants are extensively examined. “As befits a vigorous and twining climber, Wisteria has a rather tortuous taxonomic history” and includes as principle players the great Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and Thomas Nuttall after whom Cornus nuttallii, the Pacific dogwood, is named.
The cultural history of wisteria, especially in China and Japan, is another highlight while other chapters profile spectacular specimens – they can live for hundreds of years – from around the world. There is one notable example in Sierra Madre, California. Planted in 1894, it “took over the house it was originally planted on and now spreads through the gardens of two neighbouring houses.” It covers about 1.25 acres and “has entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest blossoming plant.” I never realized the peril that threatened my childhood home!
Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Fall 2020