(I wrote this article in July of 2006, and have added a note about what happened two years later...)
2006:
My vine-y twine-y wisteria, bored to death with simply sitting there, has decided to branch out and explore. It eagerly winds around anything its sinuous tendrils touch. Yesterday I caught it trying to strangle/topple the substantial cement eagle flying high up on my tall wooden fence pillar. So far I’ve managed to keep it from destroying the fence by constantly severing tendrils that slither between thick planks, there to expand and squeeze them apart. I must drag out a ladder, place it so as not to crush delicate plants, and only then reach for and amputate each thickening line before laboriously untwining each from around victimized plank(s). This tiresome task takes tons of time. And it’s all for nothing. The next week another vine-line will have crawled up the same thick plank until it’s positioned at exactly the same place with the same intention: squeeze tighter and tighter ‘til it’s ‘chairman’ of the board. Satisfied, it expands and strangles. I can practically hear it snicker at my attempts to keep this offensive behavior within bounds.
Wissy, never still, constantly sends out multiple ground-based ‘scouts,’ too, which are absolutely focused on finding and overwhelming another plant’s stem and flowers. These innocents become ladders to climb so it can peer over the fence. Wissy’s always curious.
Lengthening at shocking speed the vines move stealthily through the garden under the lush foliage - yet, oddly, it avoids grass. (How could it possibly know to do that? Never have I found one line on the lawn. Doesn’t denying itself the easy way seem counter-intuitive?)
It gets worse: those high branch-fingers love to snake up through the cheerful yellow ‘Golden Mop’ Chamaecyparis (now five feet tall and wide). Today tendrils were busily choking the topmost branches of the hapless bush- until I had the wit to rescue it. Unraveling this vine isn’t easy. It has a powerful grip.
It’s also threatening three large hostas parked under its own leafy canopy.
I found one vine-line sniffing around the cement bench today.
Laser-focused, but not terribly bright, this arrogant antisocial climber even twines tightly around itself, probably giggling wisterically.
I’ve pounded a tall, thick steel pole into the soil right next to the trunk, and tied the two together in an attempt to teach the the darn thing to be upstanding; i.e.-more tree-like. It resents this attempt to control it, and so leans obnoxiously to the far left anyway, liking the rakish slant.
Every well-mannered plant eyes it nervously.
Why do I put up with such atrocious behavior?
Well, in late spring she’s her own magnificent hanging garden. Long, grape-like pale lavender-blue flowers cascade in artful profusion from countless slim arms, inviting exploratory noses and gentle touches. Artists set up easels; the paint flies as they try to capture her loveliness. Butterflies and hummingbirds visit. Utterly enchanted, I forgive- and forget- all that bad behavior. For two or three weeks she stands tall and queen-like, basking in visitors’ awed comments.
Even the constantly threatened Chamaecyparis seems impressed.
Peace reigns.
(Oh-by the way, I’d waited eight years for flowers to appear on the vine, already six years old when I’d put it in. (huh: nobody else wanted it. It had languished in the nursery for simply ages. Maybe that should have been a hint that I might be missing something...)
Finally, just before digging it out in disgust, an elderly gardener grinned slyly and told me what to do. “Grab that long-bladed, sharp shovel and attack its spreading rootlets in late April. Be ruthless: chop ‘em all, moving in a circle at the vine’s drip line. This operation will thoroughly frighten it: bloom will be prolific. Guaranteed.” (When a plant –say, a tree- feels threatened it responds by dropping more than the usual lot of seeds, or, it makes more flowers- anything to continue the species.
After blooming, many popular flowers will gradually doze off ‘til next season. Deadheading, or removing faded flowers before the seeds drop, panics the flower into producing more flowers. And so I can force, say, perennial geraniums (cranesbill)- to bloom and bloom and bloom by deadheading daily....Cool, eh? They are none the worse for this treatment, either. Just sayin.’)
Wow! I did the deed with relish- and it worked! The panicked vine’s subsequent floral display was lush and stunning. I’ll happily frighten it every year to get what I want. Ha!)
Soon after the show, when her perfumed blooms have faded and dropped, Wissy gleefully resumes her ‘search and destroy’ ways. We revert to our former roles of cop and villain.
The time to prune this gorgeous ‘planter’s wart’ is right after it flowers. So I get straight to it, tossing endless severed long green tendril-invaders onto the tarp. (Each one must be carefully untwined from whatever flower it’s hugged too close- a long, tedious job.)
Today it’s amused itself by constantly knocking my hat and glasses off as I try to weasel my way up the middle of it to trim.
Finally I step back, satisfied. Wissy’s been reduced to a manageable whine, er, vine, sporting the equivalent of a butch haircut. Not pretty, but effective.
For a pleasant month or so I can safely ignore it, but I’m not fooled. In late summer my richly manured garden earth will reluctantly host a silent wave of strong new exploratory lines. Helped by the wind, tendril-fingers will, of course, rapidly develop higher up on this vine as well, and flail around searching for an intimate attachment, even that young. (A wisteria will live for many, many decades if it likes its aspect.)
It’s a serious mistake to underestimate it. Pythons back off respectfully. Thick iron posts eventually buckle under its weight. Given world enough and time, it can actually bring down buildings. (One elderly, thick-waisted wisteria collapsed part of Albert Payson Terhune’s famous mansion in New Jersey fifty years ago. Enraptured by its perfume and gorgeous flowers the family had foolishly ignored its massive weight and constantly extending, probing arms...)
I’m hoping I can effectively manage the situation because, darn it, those big, scented blooms are stunners. Constant vigilance and sharp pruners help to calm my heavy breathing, a sign of barely stifled frustration- and yes, latent hysteria. “This plant is certifiable,” I mutter under my breath...“but I can control it!
I can…”
P.S. In 2008 I realized I couldn’t. The rapidly growing vine had learned to spread out even earlier, and had mastered fence-climbing much faster. Three big fence boards had cracked and split. It had nearly overwhelmed my huge tropical banana tree, effectively strangled a giant blue hosta, and was throwing out line after probing line ‘below stairs,’ hunting for anything tall, whether dead or alive, that it could climb up.
I simply couldn’t keep up.
So, one hot July day I threw up my hands, marched to the workshop, fetched my sharp ax and chopped that sucker gone.
Even decapitated, Wissy had the last laugh. Even moribund the seven-inch wide, slightly protruding stump still sent out long, strong exploratory lines that raced to the top and bottom of the garden unimpeded because they were nearly invisible underneath the garden’s lush greenery. I didn’t discover its shocking resurrection for two months. By then, one particularly strong, straight ground line had extended to well over twenty feet. It took all my strength to yank it out.
Shocked and furious I doggedly chopped away every baby starter vine every few days for two more years, until finally- finally, it gave up and properly died.
The slowly decaying stump still lurks just under the dirt, too deeply anchored to dig out.
That wisteria, for all its winsome glory, was one scary dude.