There are times when one gets bored with writing stuff, inspiration is thin on the ground, I pulled back a blog yesterday because I thought it sounded a bit pompous but yes I have been watching the jollifications, asking myself stupid questions like, how do they keep those 'flying saucer' hats on?
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| How to grow wistaria, this is in a garden just outside Chelmsford |
But today a photo floated through and as I looked at the date I realised that one of my favourite creepers must be in flower. Wistaria with its delicate scent will drape a wall or a balcony or a walkway with its beautiful blooms for a short time. Like roses it needs a cultivating hand to keep it at its best. I never forgave my husband for pruning our balcony one to such a degree that he killed it in the end.
Funnily enough when I moved to Tod, hand luggage was limited but I brought the box of fine Chinese cups with me, decorated as they were with the fronds of the wisteria flowers. Several have been broken over time and I needed to keep the last for the family.
https://northstoke.blogspot.com/2015/05/wistaria.html
I love my two Italian wisteria, fortunately the one my husband had to cut back to repoint they wall is recovering with a few flowers this year. I’ve decided men should be banned from gardens - except Monty Don. www.mylifeinflipflops.blogspot.com (having problems posting comments)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure of what is happening in comments, some talk of our 'hosts' being changed. I think men like to be 'tidy' and they don't respects plants for their untidiness.
DeleteWe have a lovely purple wisteria......it actually belongs to the neighbours, but a few years ago it decided to pop over to us as well, and my husband is training it across the back of our house, as well as it being all along the ivy covered fence!
ReplyDeleteIt does tend to travel Frances, I like the way it winds its branches around everything.
DeleteI love Wisteria too, we had it all over the front of my childhood home, it would often take over the window of my bedroom blocking my view completely and much of the light.
ReplyDeleteI remember staying in a house, again as a child, which was covered in wisteria. My dad was helping prune it, my little brother would have been about three or four at the time and announced to the rest of us that Dad was pruning the loose hysteria from the house. It is a tale we still tell to this day!
That is a funny tale to keep in the stories of your family. Wistaria graces so many old houses beautifully, put an Essex plaster pink wall behind it and the combination is bewitching.
DeleteYes, I love wisteria too. I tried to stop someone cutting down a really well established one which had been gracing his boring house for years before he moved in, but he would not listen. To make it worse, he cut it down in full bloom.
ReplyDeleteSee what I have said about tidy men above Tom. Also of course some fussy creatures moan about roots creeping under the house if you plant too near and then of course you can't paint the walls whilst there is something clinging to it. But it's brief moment of glory is worth letting housekeeping slack....
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that some of the best blooms only last a little while - like cherry blossom in the middle of spring. One blustery day and it's all gone so we must wait another year.
ReplyDeleteThat's the wonder of flowers though isn't it? Transitory, their function is not really to give us pleasure but for them to renew themselves each year.
ReplyDeleteThere is a hotel in Llandod with the most AMAZINGLY ancient Wisteria growing right along the considerable width of the building. Must be 100 +years old looking at the gnarled trunks of it. Mine, by comparison, was planted last year but hey, it has a couple of flowers ready to bloom on it.
ReplyDeleteThey normally take a few years before they flower Jennie. I actually love the gnarled branches and trunks they display.
DeleteGosh those are so lovely! Your photos are terrific!
ReplyDeleteI had a good camera then Ellen.
DeleteWisteria is one of my favorite flowers, but my father called it a 'roof lifter' - best grown on a framewell away from your house.
ReplyDeleteYes I wonder how many men grew old perched on ladders trying to keep the wistaria out of mischief Tigger.
DeleteI don't believe that I have ever seen wisteria, but it really is gorgeous. Just gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteIt needs a loving hand to cultivate it Debby but in its short flowering is magnificent.
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