Wisteria sinensis 'Amethyst'

Purple Haze: Wisteria sinensis ‘Amethyst’

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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When I moved to England, one of the plants that made a big impression on me was wisteria. It can grow in Scotland if you have somewhere warm and sunny enough for it to flower, but I think I’d only seen it once or twice, if at all. Here in the east of England it is very popular and of course I wanted to grow it.

I chose Wisteria sinensis ‘Amethyst’ after falling in love with its scent when I came across a mature plant in flower. The colour is pretty too, but it was the scent that got to me most. (My sense of smell isn’t brilliant, so plants need a good scent for me to notice!)

The climber has been in the garden for quite a long time now and is busy growing over an old laurel that has become a fairly big tree. (I don’t like laurel, so I’m very happy that the wisteria makes it a bit more interesting to look at.) This year the wisteria has become a lot better established in the tree and there were lots of flowers, making it a very pleasing sight.

So far I haven’t really got to grips with pruning the wisteria properly, and obviously having it growing up a tree is going to make this difficult. However, I’m starting to see the effects of the pruning that I’ve done over the last few years and I feel a bit more confident about it than I did at the start. (There are some very clear instructions for pruning wisteria here and here – I wish I’d seen them a lot earlier!)

Right now the flowers are starting to fade and the leaves are beginning to take over. I can see that I will have a lot of pruning to do in July!

Wisteria sinensis ‘Amethyst’

Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

16 thoughts on “Purple Haze: Wisteria sinensis ‘Amethyst’”

  3. I used to love wisteria too and grew one on my south facing wall in Doncaster. It took years and years to flower (I probably didn’t prune it properly) and it was just starting to loo good when I moved! Since then I just admire it in other gardens.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I think flowering can be a bit of a lottery. I was lucky with this one – it had a flower on it when I bought it and has flowered every year since. Now it is starting to get nicely established.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. I didn’t realize that flowers could be bred for increased scent. It makes sense, I suppose, and in the case of wisteria, it’s all to the good. Since we don’t have lilacs, I make do with wisteria for my spring scent. They do put on their foliage quickly; I try and watch for the first flowers so I can get a decent photo before they start to be obscured by the plant itself.

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  5. It’s easy to see why you wanted to add this attractive plant to your garden, Ann. In my mind, it’s the quintessential flower adorning an English cottage.
    I actually just planted one next to a trellis in front of our house, but I’m worried about it already. I didn’t even know they grew in Colorado. When I saw it a local plant nursery, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

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    1. There’s lots of cottages and older buildings that have them on the front and they do look very characterful. I believe there’s a wisteria that’s native to the US – Wisteria frutescens. If it’s that, maybe it’ll be fine? I do hope it flourishes, whatever one it is!

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      1. Thank you, Ann. The label reads Wisteria macrostachya ‘Betty Matthews’, but I don’t know if that is a cultivar of that native species you mentioned or an import from elsewhere. I also hope it will like its new home!

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