Wisteria vines are among the most popular flowering vines grown in the home landscape today. Their lush growth and cascading flowers are easy for homeowners to fall in love with. Another plus to the wisteria vine is the minimal care needed to maintain a beautiful plant, but many homeowners do wonder if there is anything they need to do when considering how to prepare wisteria for winter.
The good news is that wisteria winter care, like most wisteria care, is minimal. That being said, if you have the time, there are a few things you can do for overwintering wisteria.
Care for Wisteria in Winter
First, let us say that wisteria winter care is not really necessary. Wisteria is an extremely rugged plant and can survive a wide variety of weather conditions. Unless your wisteria is newly planted or has been unhealthy, overwintering wisteria does not require extra work. If you have the time to provide a little extra TLC to winterize a wisteria that is healthy, that’s great, but if you don’t, don’t sweat it. If your wisteria is newly planted or has had trouble in the past year, adding a little additional care for wisteria in winter will help keep it healthy.
General additional wisteria winter care includes mulching the base of the plant to give the roots some added protection and trimming away any dead growth you may find on the plant. If it’s late fall or early in the winter (after the plant has shed its leaves but before snow has fallen), you can also do some cosmetic pruning to shape the wisteria vine.
If you have had trouble in past years with getting your wisteria to bloom, there is a chance that the plant may be suffering from winter dieback, which kills the blossom buds. If you suspect this is the case, wrapping the plant in burlap will help to protect the blossom buds. If your wisteria has bloomed fine in past years, this step is unnecessary. Also, please note that with wisteria, winter dieback only occurs in areas that get extremely cold. If you do not live in a very cold area, there are more likely reasons your wisteria is not blooming.
This is really all that’s needed for care for wisteria in winter. Even with these things, if you find other things in your yard are more pressing and you do not have time to winterize a wisteria, the wisteria will be okay over the winter without the extra care.
