As an amateur gardener you can imagine my joy when the wisteria, (which I acquired a couple of years ago, at the end of season sale. Y’know, looking all sorry and pathetic and shunned.), actually bloomed this year.
It was beautiful. The fragrance was fabulous. I even have photos somewhere, I’ve read about how it might never bloom again.
Well, now it’s the end of season and it’s produced very interesting seed pods. They are long and green, like overgrown beans. Oooh, and they are a little furry too. I have been watching them with great interest.
I did a little reading and discovered the pods can explode with enough force to break a window, admittedly a rarity, but still. Searching produced lots of info about how fussy a plant they are to make bloom, blah, blah. Not a word about pods.
I did come across an antidote about someone cutting the pods and putting them in the house only to discover they had exploded overnight.
So I’m wondering if other gardeners have any experience with these babies. I’d love to cut them down and dry them perhaps, but I have no idea if this is a good idea or not.
So tell me, what are you doing with the pods on your wisteria? If you leave them explode in the garden does it self seed.
Yes, they exlode with considerable force, and the seeds shoot out all over the place. The pod shells end up split and in a curled state. Some of the pod shells can be pretty darned sharp, too, if they break in half. The seeds will grow easily-- I planted several a few years ago for a friend who wanted plants and all the seeds I used sprouted.
Many legumes have pods that burst when ripe in order to disperse the seed; one of my favourites is gorse (AKA furze) - a spiny shrub of heathland, very common around my locality; the plants are awash with chrome-yellow flowers (that smell of coconut) in spring, these are followed by masses of little stubby, downy greyish pods. On a hot summer day, they burst in such number that it sounds like bacon frying and crackling in the pan.
Anyway. your Wisteria pods… I find it a little unlikely that they would explode with severe enough force to break a window in anything like normal circumstances, but they probably will pop and fling the seeds about when they are ready. You can save some seed and try growing your own, but any plants you get this way are likely to be a long time coming into bloom (ten years, perhaps more), and the flowers when they eventually do appear are likely to be less spectacular than the parent plant.
I’m in Texas, so my advice may not translate as well to your location. Wisteria here is a fairly common plant and the only trick to getting it to bloom is to water it plenty. I have not seen the seed pods explode, but have seen the exploded ones.
I would say that if you want to save some seeds, put the whole seed pods into a cloth bag and leave them to dry/explode in there. It’s safe and you won’t have to search around for the seeds afterwards.
As far as them coming up from seed, I haven’t seen it around here. I had a wisteria in my back yard at my previous address for 10 years (and it was there when I moved in) and never saw a wisteria sprout. I have a pair at my new house that look to be 3 or 4 years old - no others sprouted in the area. My grandmother had one in her yard for at least 20 years (massive wisteria bush), nothing sprouting around it.
I don’t know if it’s just my location or if wisteria’s need to be planted or passed through a ruminant’s digestive tract before they sprout. I’ve never tried to start one from seeds.
Side note: There’s a wisteria in Fredricksburg, Texas at this old (former) hospital. I don’t know how old it is, but many of the vines are at least 6" in diameter and it grows to the top of this two-story building. When it is in bloom, you can smell it from 2 or 3 blocks away.
I’m in Texas, so my advice may not translate as well to your location. Wisteria here is a fairly common plant and the only trick to getting it to bloom is to water it plenty. I have not seen the seed pods explode, but have seen the exploded ones.
I would say that if you want to save some seeds, put the whole seed pods into a cloth bag and leave them to dry/explode in there. It’s safe and you won’t have to search around for the seeds afterwards.
As far as them coming up from seed, I haven’t seen it around here. I had a wisteria in my back yard at my previous address for 10 years (and it was there when I moved in) and never saw a wisteria sprout. I have a pair at my new house that look to be 3 or 4 years old - no others sprouted in the area. My grandmother had one in her yard for at least 20 years (massive wisteria bush), nothing sprouting around it.
I don’t know if it’s just my location or if wisterias need to be planted or passed through a ruminant’s digestive tract before they sprout. I’ve never tried to start one from seeds.
Side note: There’s a wisteria in Fredricksburg, Texas at this old (former) hospital. I don’t know how old it is, but many of the vines are at least 6" in diameter and it grows to the top of this two-story building. When it is in bloom, you can smell it from 2 or 3 blocks away.
I kept 2 pods in my car for about 4 months and they didn’t explode. (thank goodness)
Wisteria in Illinois is very invasive and I have seen one eat two small oak trees. I was keeping the pods thinking of planting the seeds but my husband saw the eaten oak trees and looked at our small lot and said no, no, please don’t. So I didn’t.
My neighbors have a huge one that covers the back of their house. It drops seeds in my yard all the time. I’m forever pulling them out. They have to prune it three times a year to keep it from growing under the eves and into the attic.
There was one at my dad’s house that really stank when it bloomed; like ammonia.
I live in CA and we get no rain all summer long and my wysteria does fine-- I never water it. It grows like a weed and I have to prune it back at least once every 2 weeks. The only trick with getting it to bloom is not to overprune it in the winter. The blooms come on second year growth, so if you cut the first year growth off completely, you won’t have much flowering.
It is indeed a foreign invader plant and especially in the South can be very nasty. Don’t grow it. There are, however, native and non-native non-invasive species that you can grow, they’re just not as common as the purple stuff that eats what the kudzu leaves behind.
Oh, I wouldn’t say not to grow it, but I would watch it. It can get out of hand, but that doesn’t mean it will, if you take care of it. My next door neighbor, who is an astounding gerdener, has a plant she started from another neighbor’s seed pod about ten years ago. She has trained it into a small tree, and when it blooms it looks amazing. It really is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.
And I live in Mississippi, so I understand how it can go nutso. But I think with attention it can be quite a showstopper.
I’ve seen pictures of it trained into trees, but I’ve never seen one in person. I think that would be a neat way to go, especially because it couldn’t eat your house or your trees that way!
That seems unlikely, given the plant’s explosive dispersal strategy - plants that rely on animals’ digestive systems for dispersal usually package the seeds suitably in a somewhat persistent edible fruiting body of some kind.
Mangetout is right about seed-grown wisterias often taking many years to bloom. If you want results much faster get a good vegetatively-propagated form and don’t overdo the fertilizer.
A less aggressive plant that offers repeat flowering is Kentucky wisteria, described on this page.
Well, that’s true, but only if you continue to prune it regularly. I know she prunes hers about three times a year, because the plant tries very hard to reach out and eat the garden shed it grows beside. I think if it was left to it’s own devices it would consume her yard within a spate of a few years. It also seems to bloom every time she prunes it, but that probably doesn’t mean anything to us mortals. This woman has the most impressive green thumb I’ve ever seen.
Just to be clear, I have no issue with it running amok in my garden. For one thing, we have cold, cold winters which should stunt a little of that growth spurt and secondly, I have located it where it can be content and not damage the garden or structures, and pruning is quite easy.
Also I have no issue with it not blooming. As mentioned, it came beautifully into bloom the second year after planting, you can’t ask for more than that. But not blooming seems to be what everyone talks about when it comes to wisteria, check out google.
Loving all things natural history I was delighted to see such large lovely, and furry, pods developing. I was just wanting to know if they explode will they self seed, should I remove them first before that can happen? Will it damage my chances for blooms next year if I snip off the pods? Can I save them and dry them? Will they look cool? Will they still explode if I snip them now or will it interupt the cycle?