Wisteria sinensis - Blue Chinese Wisteria

Wisteria sinensis: People are drawn to both the purple - blue flowers and the fragrance of Wisteria sinensis. The plants are a little messy, so I try to keep them back from places that I want to keep clean. Both flowers and leaves fall in abundance. The roots can lift and buckle flagstone patios if they are not laid well. I prefer to use Decomposed Granite or gravel under the vines. It is easier to keep the area level over the long haul. Wisteria sinensis vines are incredibly malleable and can be trained into almost any shape. They can also get quite large. There is a Wisteria in Sierra Madre that covered most of a city block at one time. I think the most common error with this plant is to undersize the trellis. It is most challenging to put a new trellis under a slumping vine that weighs hundreds if not thousands of pounds. After an argument with my mother I looked it up in the dictionary and Wistaria is also a correct spelling, even if not as frequently used, she was right. The genus was named after Caspar Wistar, a prominant Philadelphia physician and member of the American Philosophical Society at the beginning of the 19th century by Thomas Nuttall. The common name is often spelled Wistaria. The seeds are poisonous.