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If you have ever wondered whether plants are aware and know what they are doing, just study a Wisteria vine for a while. Plants are wiser than you may want to believe.
This formidable vine grows across an arbor at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden in Freedom Park. Believe it or not, this vine hasn’t been growing here more than a dozen years. It already looks quite venerable and sage, doesn’t it?
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It has enthusiastically taken over the arbor, like a toddler with a new play set!
Never mind the climbing Hydrangea petiolaris desperately trying to grow up the opposite side, or the always feisty Virginia creeper that has snuck its way through the dense network of twining branches.
These three neighbors fight it out, now, for the best real estate on the arbor to catch the summer rays.
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This is our native North American Wisteria frutescens, which grows from Virginia west to Texas, and south into Florida. A deciduous woody vine, W. frutescens will grow to only about 15 meters long, which is only two thirds of the mature height of Asian Wisterias.
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Wisteria grows best is moist soil with full, or at least partial sun. It normally uses a strong nearby tree for support, but also grows on fences, trellises, or pergolas. It makes a lovely ‘ceiling’ for a pergola over a porch or deck.
Our native Wisteria may also be trained into a standard tree form, but requires a lot of tending along the way and regular trims to keep it in bounds.
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A member of the pea family, Wisteria captures nitrogen from the air and fixes it in the soil along its roots, helping to ‘fertilize’ other plants growing nearby. But please don’t taste its pea-like pods! Wisteria is a poisonous plant if eaten, which helps protect it from hungry rabbits and deer.
Wisteria also absorbs carbon from the air, cleaning and purifying the air around it while fixing excess carbon in its woody stems and roots.
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Our native Wisteria’s flowers are smaller than its Asian cousins’, too; and so it is often favored by gardeners who want a more contained Wisteria for a small garden.
Our native Wisteria is also a larval host for several types of butterflies and moths, including skippers.
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This particular vine has embraced its arbor in a crushing grip. It is as though the vine itself has become a living, twisted, arbor that will stand the test of time even if the man-made frame eventually comes apart.
Let this be a caution to you if you ever choose to plant one near your home. I did that once, and realized that wood and nails and staples are no match for this prodigious vine, no matter how sturdy the construction may appear!
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Wisteria twists clockwise around its support, weaving itself into a living sculpture.
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While other vines may have tendrils that twine or sticky pads that stick to surfaces like masonry, Wisteria is the twisting, twirling boa constrictor vine of the plant kingdom.
It gives shade to us weary gardeners, and it generously shelters birds and bugs, lizards and toads. It is teeming with life, reaching wildly with its newest branches in search of something to support its restless sprawl.
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Woodland Gnome 2018
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