Identifying and caring for vines

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

Hello!

I live in Minnesota and inherited these vines when I bought my house a few years ago. They grow up a trellis on the side of my deck and (if I'm lucky) over the pergola. I'm not certain what kind of vines they are or how best to care for them, just looking for any advice. (I was once told they might be a combination of grape vine and wisteria but I don't know if that's correct.)

Some specific questions:

With spring thaw upon us, should I be aggressively pruning/removing anything that appears to be dead (i.e. snaps off easily)? I usually err on the side of leaving them alone.
In order to "encourage" them to grow over the pergola, I've attached some green mesh fencing to the top of the trellis and over the top of the pergola. It seemed to help last year but I'm always looking for more ideas here! The vines get thick and bushy right around where the pergola starts but most of them don't seem to want to turn that corner. And it's very difficult to get on top of them and move them around by hand, even with a ladder.
A lot of times I'll find new vines growing out of the ground and under the deck (often 10+ feet), and when I notice them I pull them out and sort of feed them through the trellis and other vines in an attempt to force them up to the pergola as well. Good idea or no?

I guess a good place to start is helping me identify these so I can at least google how to care for them, but any thoughts on these specific questions would be great. Thanks in advance!

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Comments (4)

Embothrium
5 years ago
Wisteria
papnnana
5 years ago
I have never grown Wisteria because it ha a reputation for taking over. But if it were mine, I would probably thin out all the dead wood, and continue to trane it, maybe by tying in place where I wanted it it grow. And remove AL runners growing round it.
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woodyoak
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Definitely a wisteria. In your second picture if you look closely you can see that the two thick stems twined together are twining counterclockwise (from lower left to upper right) which would indicate that it is likely either a Chinese wisteria or one of the American wisterias. I don't grow the American ones but have both a Chinese and Japanese one. My Chinese one - and all Chinese ones as far as I know - have bronze colored leaves for the new growth where the summer flowers appear. The main flowering of Chinese ones is in May before the leave emerge (although the leaves start emerging as the flowers mature....) Those flowers don't look right to me to be Chinese so I'd suspect an American wisteria - perhaps a cold-tolerant one like Blue Moon...? What time of year does this one flower and does it repeat bloom? I'm not familiar with the American ones so I'm not sure what they look like re new stems - to me it looks like there is some other vine mixed in.... Are there different flowers that appear too?

For the wisteria, pruning is a regular chore - but it tends to increase flowering wood so is well worth it! Whenever possible remove root suckers by digging down and removing them from the root by twisting it off to remove the budwood, which will help prevent new root suckers from that particular spot on the roots. If you can't dig down to the root, cut it off as close as possible to the soil and keep watch for new suckers at that spot. Thin out that mess of stems now while you can see the overall structure while the leaves are off. Keep a couple of main trunks and prune out the rest. Keep ell the low emerging stems cut off and only let the top ones grow to encourage more growth at the top of your pergola.

Our 20 Year old Chinese one in January this year:

Japanese + Chinese wisterias in May in a good bloom year:
Todd thanked woodyoak
papnnana
5 years ago
Woddyoak,sounds like you know your Wisteria! 😁👍