Wonderful WISTERIA

Is there anything more beautiful in a garden than the sight of a cascading wisteria in full bloom?

- NICOLA STOCKEN

A fully-fledged wisteria at its peak is a vision of loveliness, lavishly adorning buildings and pergolas, and dripping with cascades of tiny, pea-like flowers with a sweet, musky perfume that drifts on a balmy breeze. By the time the flowers fade and fall, countless shiny, light-green leaflets have unfurled, softly shrouding the weather-beaten forms of noble wisterias branches that have seen a century or more.

Wisterias have been prized in Japan and China for hundreds of years, and even today there are wisteria gardens in Japan with long tunnels of the flowers through which visitors can stroll. European countries were unaware of wisteria until 1816, when the first seeds were brought from China by mariner Captain Robert Welbank. The story goes that, while visiting a Chinese businessman, the Englishman became captivated by the beautiful flowering clusters hanging from a pergola above the dinner table. He took seeds back to London – and one plant still survives today outside the Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, London.

In the spring and early summer, wisteria put on a breathtaking display of fragrant white, rosy-pink, mauve, violet-blue or purple coloured flowerlets, held in long racemes that vary in length from around 20cm to 120cm, according to the variety. From afar, many of these woody, deciduous climbers appear similar, but a close-up view of the flowerlets reveals intricate variations in the veining and intensity of colour that suffuses the upper swept-back petal, known as the ‘banner’; and lower sections, the ‘wing’ and ‘keel’ respectively, which house pollen-bearing stamens. Another difference lies in the spread of the flame-like mark that flares from the base of the upper petal.