Repotting Wisteria before Flowering

[Bretts]

I have a collected wisteria from a few years ago. It was very large and the softwood decayed away to the point I now have two wisterias. It has grown through the pot over a year ago and I am guessing it will need some severer root pruning. I was going to do this after it flowered but now I have a very nice pot that I would love to see one of the sections go into before it flowers.
Wisteria are tough but is this pushing it a bit to drastic root prune, pot and hope for a nice display of flowers?
Maybe I could let it flower for just a couple of days in it's new pot

[astroboy76]

it depends what u want from the tree. they are pretty hardy of hard prunins BUT do u want grwoth or flowers? if you want to develop the tree a little or a lot then u need to root prune it a little and place it is a pot. if you want flowering do not root prune but leave it pot bound and constantly wet. doing this forces the plant into reproduction mode so it will put its energy into flowering an will grow very little. if u want growth u can root prune and plant in a larger pot then normal and it will grow liek crazy but maybe not flower at all

[astroboy76]

flowers only last a short while, i would wait until past the flowering peak then repot and root prune away if you like. how ever too severe a rot pruning may hinder flowering next year

[kvan64]

Hi Bretts. A couple things I found for the wisterias:
1 -Repotting/roor pruning does not stop them from flowering. Actually sometimes it helps the wisterias that don't flower by barerooting them and leave them in the hot house with a few buckets of water to keep the air humid from evaporation. I tried this on a few of my wisterias and it works on most of them.
2- I solved rotting on wisterias by keeping them wet all the time. I even had a shallow water tray for one of my wisterias for a couple years. I accidentally found out a bout this when I visited a local creek that has heaps of wisteria floribunda. Some of the trees on dry land have rotted trunks and one tree just thrives in the middle of the creek (growing in the water).

I just potted a big one. Hope that it will flower this season

[tex048]

Thanks Bretts and all

I have two Wiseria (1Large 1Small)

That are new to me this year - this has answered many questions that i had.

Kvan64 - Is the problem with the rot on the Wisteria the wetting and then drying out again? and when woul you be expecting yours to flower?


Sean

[Bretts]

Hey Astro I have given about all I can about what I want from the tree. It is collected material that will now start it's life on the road to bonsai. Need lots of growth to get it settled into it's new pot.
I guess If I repott before it flowers I should remove the flowers but I want to have my cake and eat it too. Wondering how others have gone repotting before flowering as I understand it should be done after flowering as you say.

Hey Kvan
Sounds like you are saying go for it.

I solved the rotting by letting it rot as much as it wanted too and then look at enjoying what is left Although years ago i tried to fight wood rot I tend to agree with the advice that ,wood will always rot eventually so why fight it, these days.
I have been looking forward to seeing what is under the soil. It was probably ready last year but I ran out of time.

[kvan64]

Hi Sean. I found that if a wisteria can't get enough water or nutrients, it tends to have branches and then bark/trunk underneath those branches to die back. I guess it is a way for them to conserve/deal with water shortage (less branch/leaves --> less loss of water through respiration?). The truth is you can't overwater or over feed them!

Different species of wisterias flowers at diferent time in spring. I've seen a couple trees (not mine) flowers a couple times a year. My uncle's wisteria already flowered. I expect most of my wisterias to start flowering in a few weeks time (don't know about the newly potted tree though).

The best wisteria I've ever seen (photos only) is the one owned by bodhidharma. See his thread below:
viewtopic.php?f=132&t=2561&hilit=wisteria+lady

Edit: Yes I meant go 4 it Bretts Please also post before and after photos.

[craigw60]

G'day Brett, as Kvan has stated root pruning before flowering should have no impact on the flower production. I have a couple of big wisteria with large scars that rotted . One of them went on the burn pile this year, I got about 15 yrs out of it but this year it succumbed to the rot. the other one is still ok but I don't know how much longer it will last.
Craigw

[tex048]

Thanks kvan64

Thanks for info
I'll make sure I keep up the water and feeding
I'll post some pics of my 2 in a new thread sometime.

Sean

[astroboy76]

hey kvan64,

was the big wisteria you just potted the one that sold on ebay not too long ago?

[Bretts]

Thanks Guys
I will see if it drys out enough and I might get into it today.
Mine usually flowers a few times a year so hopefully that keeps up.
These Pics are from a few years ago before the rot seperated the one stump into two sections. If only I had got there sooner and stopped them chopping it down so far

bonsai wisteria (2).jpg

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bonsai wisteria (5).jpg

[Bretts]

And here it is today.

wis.jpg

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[Bretts]

Sun was enticing enough to get the job done today.

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[kvan64]

hey kvan64,

was the big wisteria you just potted the one that sold on ebay not too long ago?

You are very perceptive astroboy Actually, this is just half of the big tree and the base of this half is 250mm wide.
DK

[Bretts]

The flowering of the wisteria was OK for it's first year in a display pot. Now I have to study up on it's first styling

wis.jpg