Green Acre: Wisteria Fantasy . . .

This, across the top of the garage, is the flowerless wisteria after its August haircut. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

MY PRINCE is getting testy about the wisteria. Not only is it out of control, he says, but he figures he’ll soon be too old to deal with the necessarily frequent summertime haircuts it requires. 

That he’s been announcing he’s getting too old for the last 30 years is neither here nor there—the Fat Lady has yet to sing. That was an aside.

The never-blooming wisteria he considers a pestilence and a complete waste of time. The intent was that the vine cross the trellis atop the garage roof, providing screening of the townhouses behind ours, while providing a cascade of fabulously scented purple blossoms each spring and perhaps an occasional flower popping up through fall.

Sounds divine, right?

As it happens, this wisteria has had no more than a dozen flowers in its 40-some years. Despite the advice of this expert and that, and numerous theories, including root pruning, fertilizing, not fertilizing, and so forth, this vine—usually so ridiculously prolific that many consider it a weed—refuses to perform. 

The other day The Prince was cursing away as he thwacked at this summer’s monstrous growth. Vines like steel cables had tangled in the branches of the cherry tree and the rose of sharon, and wriggled through the ivy growing up the garden walls. 

While it still performs its main purpose—its billowing greenery raise the garage roof,  yielding four feet of additional privacy—I do agree it has many levels of irritation.

We should have known.

We should also have matching hairshirts saying We Should Have Known, as it is the leitmotif of our lives in the garden.

Had I not read (and read) that the wisteria is highly invasive—before we’d planted one? But I figured it would be someone else’s problem in time, and we’d be propped up at a bar in Key West, margaritas in hand, celebrating the sunset at the southernmost point. 

But what do we replace it with? What other vine grows so quickly, luxuriantly, and, let me say this again, quickly. Damn time marches on. 

Wait! I have a thought. The orange trumpet vine we planted on the north wall (could be the south wall, I’m directionally challenged) might be trained . . .

It’s said to be invasive too, but it’s better behaved, more inclined to grow where it’s trained. So, perhaps we can pull it down from the neighbor’s wall, where it has grown three stories and lay it along the fence top and over to the garage roof to dance along the trellis. The orange flowers will look right jolly above the turquoise door.

Brilliant thinking, I’m thinking.

To the ladder, my boy! I’ll direct.

Next week. Our parakeets, Cooper (the mama) and Goldie (the papa), had a blessed event last weekend. We won’t know the sex for at least six months, but we’re winging it and naming the budgie Kamala. 

Her pronoun: they.