Originally Posted by
Geri B
Success! Found a nursery that knew what I was looking for (flowering almond), had them, so off I went! Bought one for me and one for my dd as an Easter present......told her to think of me each time she looks at it. Mine is planted now in the front garden so I can admire it from front porch......it is a lovely specimen. Funny, the nursery person said another woman had been in the day before and bought 2 too.
Now I am looking to replace a star magnolia that is only 12 yrs old, but only half bloomed this year and I've been told it will not come back........so looking for something else in the ornamental, not gigantic size, tree....does anyone here have a Chinese blue wisteria? It looks interesting......I am zone 5
In the south Chinese Blue Wisteria grows like kudzu. It's considered an invasive plant. It's an Asian import that runs rampant over trees, telephone poles, old buildings, and slow-moving children. As bad as Kudzu is, Chinese Wisteria is even worse; Kudzu simply climbs and covers native trees and shrubs--occasionally shading them out and killing them---while Chinese Wisteria almost always strangles them to death. Wisteria is a twining vine, and when it wraps around a tree trunk the combined growth of vine and tree eventually chokes off the tree's plumbing. After the host tree rots away or topples earthward, the wisteria simply grows along the ground until the delicate tip of a new stem finds another vertical object to ascend, and the murderous cycle repeats itself. A better choice would be American wisteria (
Wisteria frutescens) which doesn't take over everything
.
That said I love the way it smells. There was some that had blanketed the trees across the street from my childhood home. We didn't have AC so the windows were open at night with a fan blowing in the outside air. The smell from the blossoms was my night time perfume as I fell asleep.