My Obsession With Plants – This Spring Its Wisteria
It
is approaching mid-March and the plant catalogs have been arriving en masse. So
rather than work on the project my husband had planned for me today, I plopped
myself down in a chair with my garden catalogs and laptop and began
investigating the best source for non-invasive wisteria that are likely to
bloom before the end of this decade.
When
we first moved to our little piece of heaven seven years ago, we had fantasies
that we would tame our wild environment replete with faux soil that is a mix of
clay and shale and requires a pick to plant a small perennial and a backhoe to plant
a tree. We imagined that within five years we would have created our own Garden
of Eden. Part of the vision included our
front porch dripping with the sweet scent and pendulous lavender blooms of old
fashioned wisteria.
So,
were did a neophyte gardener turn for plants? Why, eBay, of course. I ordered 3
twigs of Chinese wisteria, planted, fertilized, and watched with wonder as it
grew faster and higher than Jack’s beanstalk. Then we waited and waited and
waited …and no blooms. I searched online for tips on forcing wisteria to bloom.
For three summers and winters I pruned and hacked and tried to shock the roots-
only to see the vines grow higher and faster and larger while pulling the porch
railing apart.
At
Thanksgiving this year, my mother-in-law and father decided the invasive
monster had to go. So, the entire family sawed, dug, cut, untwined, and
disconnected the wisteria from the house. When my husband emerged from the
basement, he was most distressed. Surely, in only a few more years it would
have burst into bloom.
I
was more sanguine. I had done my research.
I knew I had erred in buying the unpredictable Chinese wisteria on eBay.
Since then I’d found davesgarden.com, the Holy Grail of garden websites. I knew
I needed a different cultivar of wisteria and where I could find it. The
“watchdog” page shares the 30 highest rated mail order sites complete with user
reviews. The database includes at least 4181 companies with more than 70,000
reviews by customers. You can also search for a particular plant and find the
companies that have them for sale complete with a link to the website. I try to
stick with The Watchdog 30, which do change as the reviews change.
My
wonderful parental units with their ever- clever wits gifted us at Christmas
with a check specifically targeted for new wisteria. The time had come. Today was the day. So this is what I’ve
ordered – 3 different cultivars from Sooner Plant Farm – a Dave’s Garden
favorite. They will be shipped at the
appropriate time for our planting zone. And I know, in no time at all, we’ll
have our classic southern front porch dripping with those glorious lavender
blooms.
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