By: Kathleen Mierzejewski
Wisteria vines are a beautiful plant for climbing along fences and trellises in your yard. They make a great plant to grow on a grape arbor covering a patio because the lilac flowers drape so nicely down from the plant. They can beautify any area that you plant them in and do well most times no matter where you plant them. They require little care and are a pretty easy plant to maintain. However, there are wisteria problems and wisteria vine common diseases you should know about in case you find your wisteria dying.
Wisteria Vine Common Diseases – Crown Gall
Probably the biggest wisteria disease to worry about is crown gall. Crown gall is a disease that affects the stems and roots of the plant. This wisteria disease causes rough galls to grow at the crown of the root where the soil meets the root system. They can vary in size and as they become older, they get almost black and really hard.
Crown gall causes wisteria problems in that it is caused by bacteria so your plant is essentially sick. Further, this wisteria disease can live in the soil for over a year, so even if your plant dies off, you should never replant something immediately in that place because the crown gall will attack the new plants as well.
You might not notice any problems with crown gall as far as wisteria problems go. However, once the galls are plenty or a large gall has formed, your wisteria problems will increase. The plant can become sickly and even stunted. They may get red or yellow leaves. If you find your wisteria dying, you may have a very severe problem on hand.
If you find your wisteria dying you might want to check for galls. If you find them, you should definitely find a way to control them. You would need to remove the infected plants from the area because without the plant, the galls can’t grow. Keep the area free of new plants until you know you have controlled the gall from spreading.
Once you have used any sort of tools to remove your wisteria disease can spread. You need to sterilize the tools in a 20 percent bleach solution or ½ percent potassium permanganate solution to reduce the spread of the bacteria when you perform more budding and grafting in the future.
Other Wisteria Vine Common Diseases or Problems
Other than crown galls, wisteria problems are usually scarce. Because of the shade caused by the wisteria vines, sometimes you might find some powdery mildew growing on your wisteria. This will not kill the wisteria, but it may cause it to look unsightly for a period of time.
