wisterias - winter interest in trunks :-)

3 years ago

I find the look of the trunks - the twisty stems merging, and the growth happening under the bark - to be more visible and thus more interesting once leaves drop and perennials die back (which makes the wisteria woody growth more visible.) The pictures below were taken this morning... Mind you, problems can become more visible at that point too....!

Chinese wisteria trunk:

Japanese wisteria trunk:

Those pictures raise/highlight a couple of questions for me....:

- What is causing the blue-green spots on the Chinese wisteria trunk and are they a sign of something that might kill or permanently damage the wisteria?

- The metal support posts used to hold up the Chinese vine originally to make it more tree-like and the metal supports for the Japanese one are distracting now but are too tightly gripped by the stems to be easily removed - plus I'm not sure if the vines will ever be sufficiently self supporting! You can see if you look closely that the Japanese one was originally supported by a wooden tree-stake that broke off after a couple of years but we couldn't remove it when we put in the angle-iron replacement supports.... (The Chinese one was planted in 2000 and the Japanese one in 2009....) Does anyone have any practical suggestions on what to do re the supports at this point?

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Comments (6)

peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
3 years ago
woody the vines really do have year round interest, so attractive. Could you get a close up of the spots on the trunk. It could be Chlorociboria aeruginascens or C. aeruginosa - green stain fungus. It could be lichen. Difficult to say at a distance.

I would think you could use a small pruning saw to cut away the visible portions of the wood stake.
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
3 years ago
peren.all - thanks for the information re the green bits! That certainly looks likely! I’ll try to get a closer picture today or tomorrow…. So far, I haven’t found any information saying the fungus is damaging, but I’ve seen lots of comments saying that it has a history of the colored wood being used in fancy wood products :-)

I’m less concerned with getting rid of the remaing bit of wood stake than what to do about the metal stakes. I figure the wood one might eventually just rot away… The metal stakes are a bit less obvious when everything is in leaf so they are mainly a problem in the leafless time of year! I’ve read that Victorian-era wisteria ’trees’ have a metal stake at their heart - in hindsight we should probably have done it that way. Too late now…. I’m uncertain what to do about the ones we have to avoid risking the wisterias….
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peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
You are most welcome! I 'don't know if you saw this SITE. Lots of info and 4th paragraph down gives a little on if it is problematic. Most info is centred on the beauty of fungus itself when fruiting and how prized the wood is and yes the beautiful pieces made from it.

Someone will likely come up with a solution to the metal stakes. My only suggestion might be to paint them the same colour as the trunk(s).

You could also cross post to the Name That Plant forum. There is a fellow (dirt_farmer) there who is extremely knowledgeable on fungi.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
3 years ago
cant really see any blue green spots since you took the pic on the drabbest day of the month .. all 5 days of it.. lol ..

maybe in sun they could be seen ...

most likely harmless lichens...

now riddle me this batman... are you fixing that which is not broke?.. if its not broke.. why harm the plant trying to remove the wooden stake??? be like a DR.. do no harm...

as to the metal stakes... the soil if fluffiest in spring ... every other day after ground freeze abates.. go out there and move the stake back and forth ... after a few weeks.. it will move easily and freely.. and sooner or later.. you will be able to pull it out ...

but do get it done.. before water is sucked out of the earth by july .... then the ground will be too hard to win the game....

ken

ps: btw.. the wooden stake is hilarious... and a great story for garden visitors.. in the sense of.. do what i say. not what i did ... this would work in toro's post ...
woodyoak
Original Author
3 years ago
peren.all - it was interesting to take some more pictures of the green spots this morning. The side facing to road (east side...) has green spots but the side facing the house (west side...) has gray spots!

The west side does look, though, like it's maybe heading towards green.... (ken - you can't see the green?! It was sunny here yesterday when I took those pictures at the top of this thread and it is sunny again this morning....)

ken - you may be right though re 'fixing what may not be broke' :-) I was just going back through pictures for several years of the wisteria when they are in growth. The posts - metal or wood - are only really visible when the vines/'trees' are completely leaf-free. And even then there is enough other distractions that I think people wouldn't focus on them as much as I do! peren.all - I like the idea of painting the posts to match the wood of the trunk/stems but I don't think it's worth the effort! ken- trying to shift the posts to make them easier to remove isn't the problem as much as the fact that at the top ends of the posts the wisterias have grabbed on and wrapped around them so it's not easy to remove them for that reason. We could prune those bits of wisteria off to get at the posts I guess but I need to think if it is worth it to do that - and see if DH is willing to get up there to do that as he's the one that does the heavy pruning!

Hmmm... I think I'm reaching the conclusion to 'leave well-enough alone'. I hope the green spots stay essentially harmless! Can you tell that I'm a bored gardener facing the long winter garden-less season?!
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Hmmm... I think I'm reaching the conclusion to 'leave well-enough alone'.

-->> the conclusion of both a brilliant man.. and a lazy man.. lol .. woman too ... no difference in this application ...

i found i can come up with dozens of reasons not to do something ... lol

guess you are right.. i cant see the tops of any of the metal posts ... all i know is.. my sand turn to cement in july and august.. you cant pull out a drive t bar stake for the life of you ... but if you just move it back and forth eventually you loosen it wide enough.. and deep enough that you can eventually pull it out.. and its easiest when the soil is the softest.. spring and fall .. presuming no drought ...

ken