My wisteria vine is 4 yrs old when will it flower ?

Grafted wisteria should flower in the first year.



Wisteria grown from seed can take upwards of ten years to flower.

My wisteria vine is 4 yrs old when will it flower ?
Grafted Wisterias usually flower more quickly than the others - if you check the base of your plant, you should see a point where a graft has been made. The graft is the addition of the growing plant onto strong root stock, which gives the plant good vigour. You may see the remnants of a covering over the graft point. If it's not a grafted plant, it will still benefit from it being 'encouraged' to flower, through good cultivation. I'm assuming your plant was 4 or 5 feet tall when you purchased it, so was already a couple of years old.



Other considerations are the location of your plant as well as well as pruning it.



A good sunny location should allow your plant to develop well, and ripen its shoots each year, ready for flowering the following spring time. If you keep its shoots growing horizontally this also helps the sap to slow down, which helps with forming buds.



Pruning - whilst 2 prunes a year would be ideal, at least go for a late summer prune- preferably around July or even into August time. Shorten new growths back by around a 1/3, to around 6 nodes per stem. Having short growths does kick the plant into producing flower buds. If you have the time, shortern any shoots that appear after your pruning, to 2 or 3 leaf nodes - otherwise, do a spring prune.



A spring prune can help remove any late summer tangles too, if you have the time - before the flower buds (when they arrive) form-otherwise, it's easy to knock them off, whilst pruning. Obviously this would awful, after waiting so long to get it to flower!



Feeding with a high fertiliser high in Potassium or Potash will also encourage this plant to flower, especially if the soil is somewhat diminished.Potassium is the K in the N:P:K relative components that you'll see on fertiliser packs. Otherwise you could just add Sulphate of Potash to the soil, during the growing season, available for low cost from garden supply companies / shops. Wilkinsons in the UK sell for a couple of pounds, for example.



If you're doing most things right, I'd expect flowers in the next couple of years - my mum waited almost 10 for one of hers to flower once! If all is good this year, you may get lucky with spring 2009, or even a late flush in 2008.



Let me know if you'd like any of this clarified. Good luck! Rob
Reply:if it does'nt flower this year it never will.a major problem is blind wisterias.Only buy in garden centre when they are flowering and they always will.Wisteria sinensis is the most reliable for flowers.Try putting sulphate of potash all round the roots immeadiately as the stops the plant from making leaves and forces flower buds onto stem,but usually blind mean blind for life
Reply:Our neighbor is sharing a 40' wisteria with us. We always prune it back by one third right after it blooms in the spring and do not prune again that year. This makes it bloom the next spring. They recover FAST from pruning. You can cut them to the ground and they will be fully grown by the end of summer.



It is okay to cut off any vines that keep hitting you in the face as you mow. :o)



Do not let your lawn fertilizer get anywhere near the wisteria. This makes for pretty leaves, but no flowers.



The more you water, the faster it will grow.