The wisteria is definitely one and the last six weeks has been exciting time for it too! Yes, I am serious here – like many others I have been closely watching this plant daily for any signs of flowering. I do the same every year – it really is a hard habit to break! However, this year it most definitely exceeded all my expectations.
Why won’t my wisteria flower? This is probably the most common question and there can be many reasons and I would not like to give anyone false hope by saying this is how to do it. However, what I will say is that this year my Wisteria has, for me, a serious wow factor! It has never looked so good – it is white and its fragrance smells divine. This is also the first year I have ever seen bees at it – and there have been a few.
How long did it take from bud to flower? The photo of the flower above was taken yesterday, June 6th, and the photo below of the first bud to open was taken on April 20th. My first flowers started to open on May 23rd but there are many flowers to open on the long racemes and it probably wasn’t until May 31st that it looked properly in flower. Each day more and more flowers are opening – let’s hope we get some more sunshine to bring the rest out! As you can probably guess, I am absolutely thrilled with my wisteria this year! Sorry, how long from bud to good flower – 41 days for my Scottish garden.
Did I do anything different this year? Well, yes I did. I had no idea if it would help but the expectation of a flower on this climbing plant is so great for all who grow it! I read that they shouldn’t dry out so this year once the buds started to appear I gave it a full watering can of water when it began to get dry. I also fed it with a High Potash feed, although not as regularly as I planned, which I mixed in my watering can. Can I be sure this is all it needed to get it to flower so well? I will stick my neck out here and say – yes!
Will I repeat this process next year? Oh Yes! But I am not finished for this year yet I plan to continue watering when it is dry – although I won’t keep it waterlogged. I also plan to carry on feeding throughout the flowering period and some time beyond to feed it up for next year’s flowers. I will prune the whippy new growth later in the summer and will show this when I do it.
To see more photos of my wisteria go shirls plantphotos
I looked at your page today to see if what I think might be a flower bud really was, and I think it might be! I'm so excited, I too had really given up hope, I'm not sure how long I've had the plant, it could be more than ten years and no sight of a flower, I still can't quite believe it, so I have my fingers crossed.
Liked your page very much and if I have a flower I shall follow the advice and hopefully get more next year!