The wisteria

The Wisteria

It's the magical moment of wisterias flowering at Sissinghurst. I'd like to show you how a wisteria can be multifunctional as well as sublimely beautiful, and share how to get the most from yours – because there's one for everyone.

We have Wisteria floribunda 'Alba', which has long racemes of scented white flowers. With several species and many cultivars to choose from, there's a wisteria for everyone.

Ours grows over a wall that has a bigger drop on one side than the other. Planted on the side with higher ground, it hangs down on the other side over a path for a sensory experience. This works well: the sunken ground traps the scent, while the growth above the wall creates a soft divide between formal and informal areas of the garden.

The Key Tips Are To:

• Get the positioning right – somewhere where it has room to grow, and with a bit of sun for best flowering.
• Get the pruning right – remove excess growth in summer to allow sun in to ripen the wood for next year's flower buds to develop.

"This is an absolute joy of a moment that I look forward to every year at Sissinghurst"

Further Reading

• RHS guide to wisteria pruning

Plant Directory

Wisteria brachybotrys f. albiflora 'Shiro-kapitan'

Silky wisteria

Hardy deciduous climber

Fabaceae

Wisteria floribunda f. alba 'Shiro-noda'

White Japanese wisteria

Hardy deciduous climber

Fabaceae

Glossary

Diaphanous

Something so delicate and thin that you can see through it.

Raceme

A group of flowers on a plant that are attached to a central flowering stem by short stalks of roughly equal length, with the flowers at the base of the stem opening first and those at the tip opening last. E.g., foxgloves, lupins, wisteria.