RHS Wisley's inspiring wisteria

By the Conifer Lawn, we have two eye-catching examples trained on pillars as freestanding plants. These are both Wisteria floribunda ‘Domino’, an excellent cultivar with a delicious fragrance.

Nearby on the Walled Garden’s outer walls is a cultivar with very long racemes and amazing scent, W. floribunda ‘Strella’, while further along the same wall is perhaps the truest pink wisteria, W. brachybotrys ‘Showa-Beni’.

Inside the Walled Garden, is the lesser-known American wisteria, Wisteria frutescens ‘Longwood Purple’. Less vigorous than most, it blooms through the summer with smaller flowers that look like bunches of grapes.

At the bottom of the Alpine Meadow, on the corner of one of the bridges, is a cultivar named for the founder of Wisley, W. floribunda ‘George F. Wilson’, which has a delightful deep purple flower.

Adorning the archways of Wisteria Walk are two cultivars chosen for their long, scented flower clusters that hang to great effect between the arches. Wisteria floribunda ‘Kokuryu’ is an excellent purple, while striking W. floribunda ‘Kimono’ is white with a blue eye. They are both very vigorous, so require a large structure to grow on. ‘Kimono’ produces its flower buds a little later so if there’s a late frost, there should still be flowers.

If you don’t have a suitable wall or structure, or prefer a more wild look, wisteria can be grown up trees. In Oakwood, the very large white-flowered Wisteria brachybotrys f. albiflora ‘Shiro-Kapitan’ scrambles up old rhododendrons, while further into this woodland area, purple-flowered W. floribunda f. multijuga climbs 70ft up into the oak trees – one of the most spectacular sights at Wisley. On Battleston Hill, by the Doric Temple, look out for the rather unusual double-flowered cultivar W. floribunda ‘Double Trouble’.

If space is restricted, growing wisteria as a standard can make a great specimen for a small garden. At Wisley we grow wisteria standards at the top of Jellicoe Canal and in the Bowes-Lyon Rose Garden. Pruning remains the same as for larger wisteria, and if fed and watered frequently, these can be grown in a pot too. The main thing to remember with a standard is to stake it, because even though wisteria becomes woody, it remains flexible (being a climber, not naturally a tree!).

The long ponds at the bottom of the Rock Garden have a wooden bridge across them where wisteria has flowered since the late 1800s, when the garden – then known as the ‘Oakwood experimental garden’ – was owned by its creator George Fergusson Wilson. A very early photograph of Wisley depicts beautifully dressed Victorians standing on an early version of the bridge you can see today.

Discover more about Mr Wilson's Wisley

It’s wonderful Wisteria time! Download the RHS Garden Wisley app and use as your personal tour guide. Look out for other walks throughout the year.

• Growing wisteria up sunny walls will promote the best flowering results. However, flowers last longer on shadier walls, though there will be fewer of them.
• If you can, always buy grafted plants. Seed-raised wisteria can be of unreliable flower quality or may not flower for many years. It’s therefore best to buy your wisteria in flower.

• Take time to construct a good system of wire supports across a wall so that you can train your plant to the desired size and shape with regular pruning.
• My favourite selection suitable for a very small space is Wisteria frutescens ‘Longwood Purple’, which looks excellent on a small wall and can even be grown in a container.