Sorry to hear that. I guess this is a "before" shot? Thanks for the warning. From what I've seen they are not such monsters in my zone, but if it turns out that way I'll have been forewarned. What zone are you? I had a wisteria in there before for about 7 years and couldn't even get the stems to overwinter. I have no problem wintering Hibiscus syriacus aka. rose of sharon though with our great snow cover. This one is a zone hardier "Blue Moon", although the other one was zoned hardy enough too, so for now I'll give it a try anyway.

Didn't see a zone mentioned, but you may well be right! What we did was set eyebolts in the backs of the columns and installed stainless steel trellis wire (most well-stocked garden centers should have it). Occasionally we'd have to wrap the vines around the wire to remind them where to go, but that worked. And we pruned off anything that wasn't climbing. (and yes, definitely a before shot! For some reason I can't find our most recent pics)

Sorry, USDA Z4. Up until a short while ago "Ottawa USDA Z4" was part of my "label" for lack of a better word and automatically printed at the top of every single post of mine. Don't know how or why that was changed.

How many main stems did you allow to grow upright from the ground?

To make a minor correction, what you're calling "beams" are posts.

You are too worried about the wisteria. You could plant one at any post or every post and it would work out, IF wisteria will grow well for you there.

It would be better to train it up or around a post, not through the lattice. The lattice is going to disintegrate with wisteria growing in it. It doesn't matter if you train it around the post (though the lattice is in the way) or straight up, or how many stems. It's up to your arbitrary desire and as the plant grows it will usually give you clues about what it can do, and you can alter is somewhat to make it do what you want. The post portions of your structure look fine but the cross beams and joists look weak for wisteria. Then again, if it's a milder plant in your climate it may work out OK. Then again, if the top is destroyed and you need to rebuild it, it's not that major.

Yes, post does make more sense, I'm no carpenter. Totally agree on the lattice, it was my husband's idea. It became evident several years ago the trellis was in danger with my first wisteria attempt, but it grows so many darned new shoots from the base. It's a bit of a challenge to either remove extra and tie up the stems before they latch on and start weaving cloth on the lattice. I seem to get like 20 stems coming from the ground that stay thin and go nowhere instead of a few strong ones that grow woody and winter over. That's why I'm hoping for input from someone with experience on the growing / pruning aspect of wisteria in my colder climater Perhaps it's just a matter of religious care - thinning out to a fewer main stems early on and removing new ones daily LOL, tying in new growth of the main stems more faithfully and yes, luck that the main stems grow woody and overwinter.

Be careful what you wish for. My only experience with wisteria was a mature one at a house we bought. I thought it was going to eat the house; it would have swallowed your whole gazebo in one season. (Hammock? What hammock?)

I don’t grow Blue Moon and am in a warmer area than you. But we have grown both a Chinese and a Japanese wisteria - both are kept pruned to grow as ‘trees’ (click on the picture in the round circle by my name to see them...) The Chinese one was planted in 2000 and the Japanese one about 7 years later. The flowerbuds sometimes winterkill, but the vines always survive here. The Japanese one is the most vigorous re root suckers - it still regularly produces dozens of them; the Chinese one hasn’t produced any in quite a few years. The Japanese one also produces a LOT more of the whippy new stems from the main framework than the Chinese one does. The Japanese one requires root sucker removal and trimming back excess top growth almost weekly while the Chinese one can go a couple of weeks now between prunings. The Chinese one will produce secondary summer flowers near the site where new growth was cut back about 7-10 days after cutting the growth back. By the sounds of it, Blue Moon’s growth habit is somewhere in between....

Definitely that lattice will get mangled! We once visited a garden in the Niagara area where wisteria had been let to grow wild. An interesting thing they did in a few places was to use the long flexible stems to actually weave walls in places!

If you’re growing a wisteria and want to control it well, in our experience pruning can be almost a daily chore at first and will always be a regular chore...! But pruning is what maximizes flower production, so prune, prune, prune....

I guess it's hard to see, and maybe not your idea of a hammock. There is a white string hammock strung between the ends that holds my 6' 2' well over 200 pounds man very comfortably. If you look at the left and follow the top of the shovel handle it starts about there and arcs to the other side.

Ya, I did not ask for the lattice that's the way my husband built it. I curse it and I hope I can work around it.

Questions woodyoak If I attach the main stem(s) to the outside posts and remove the lateral growth as much as possible till it gets to the top will it still likely eat up the trellis?

Would allowing 4 main stems, say two at each post be a reasonable goal? Should I allow more? Should l allow less main stems? My goal is just to get growth that actually *gets* to the top. In the 13 years I had the old one I didn't get anywhere near to the top, just lots of little stems from the roots that didn't get woody. Frustrating, when I can grow trees from seed successfully, but not make this thing grow "UP".

oh Woodyoak. I am "following" you, but when I click on the circle I only get the same photo that is in miniature beside your name on the post here. love to see your photos of your wisterias.

Mary - if you click on this link, it should take you to the front garden section of the on-line (Wordpress blog site) version of the maintenance manual I keep for our garden. Scroll down to the section titled Moat bed and you will see pictures of our wisterias and can read about how we grow and maintain them. There is a larger version there of the photo that is in the circle by my name here.

Growing only a couple of stems up each post seems reasonable but you would likely still need to do regular pruning to remove new growth from the roots and to remove growth emerging from along the stems growing up the posts. I’m not familiar with the specific growth habits of the species that Blue Moon is a variety of, but I can almost guarantee that there will be lots of pruning needed :-).

eta - those little stems that ‘don’t get woody’ should probably get thicker and turn woody if you let them grow long. But don’t let them ALL grow long; just the number you want to grow up the posts.

OK, sounds like exactly what I've been doing for the last 15 years, but I'll keep on keepin' on knowing I *should* have a hardier plant in the new one. Wow, love your wisterias.