Wisteria From Seed

My neighbor has a well established wisteria that I've always admired. So, this spring when the seed pods were firing (seriously, like getting shot at by a BB gun) the seeds at us, I gathered up a small handful of the seeds to try my luck with them. Well, they took rather well and I have about six plants about a foot tall. I always add just a smidgen of rooting hormone to the water when I pre-soak seed.

Now then, while reading one of my books on perennials it said that wisteria will grow from seed but would not flower. Well, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Does anyone have an opinion or advice? No sense planting them if its true.

Thank you.

They will flower...but it takes forever for seed-grown wisteria to bloom. OK, not necessarily forever, but 10+ years in many cases. And seed grown ones may not be as pretty & floriferous as the hybrid cultivar they came from even when they do get around to blooming. So I'd try taking some cuttings from your neighbor's plant instead; cutting grown wisteria will be genetically identical to the parent and also will take less time to bloom (although it'll still probably be a couple years)

Well, that makes sense. I think I'll go for the cuttings as you suggest, pull up a rocker and watch it grow. heh. Seriously, Thank you.

When we were kids there was an old ruined mansion house where the walls were decked with the most beautiful Wisteria, the flower in length of about 12 inches long, deep purple, anyway we took some seeds and grew them in a bit of the garden we were given for our own, the seeds did germinate and grew over the years, we left that garden after 22 years and the Wisteria was still flourishing, it never flowered, I returned much later when my cousin was getting married and had a look at our old garden, the wisteria was still growing strong, thick branches, wonderful foliage but never flowered, the owners grew Clematis all over and threw our childhoods Wisteria. I asked an old gardener when I had my own garden how to get Wisteria to flower and he recommended either using the rootstock I had from childhood and BUDDING several buds onto it the buddings taken from a FLOWERING plant of Wisteria,the material must be from the previous years wood, you would do this around March.
Also as Ecrane has mentioned take cuttings from the neighbours plants, cuttings are usually taken around August, (now) you need cuttings of this years growth, you need to take the cuttings either heal cuttings, ( this is wood pulled away at the joint and you have a bit of the stem bark attached, trim the bark with a clean sharp knife and insert in a sandy peaty soil with bottom heat, or take the cutting (this years wood) from where a node (leaf joint is) trim the stem to just below the leaf node and remove the leaves except the top few, insert the cuttings in the same kind of soil in pots and use under heat till rooted, keep misting and done let them go too dry. by next spring there should be good roots. these wont flower for a good few years but they will flower after say about 5 years to ten years where as seeds wont flower at all.. search around the bottom of the neighbours tree as there may be bits that have rooted at the base, you just need to cut these away and pot them up and care for them. Good luck. WeeNel.