How to Winter Prune Wisteria

I Love Wisteria but it is definitely a labour of love to grow it, a red wheelbarrow  of a plant . I was up the ladders yesterday pruning it, giving the Wisteria its very necessary Winter Prune which is not a job I enjoy, pruning yes, ladders no. Come the late spring I will think it is worth it to see, and smell, the lovely blooms but to get Wisteria to flower it must be pruned every year, not once but twice.

Wisteria is a really vigorous plant and if you are planting bear in mind in 5 years, if planted against a wall, it will reach the upper stories of the house, which is why ladders are needed. The big pruning worry, will I kill it ? Very unlikely unless you cut hard right down in the old wood. Will I stop it flowering? Again not likely, unless you cut off all the flowering spurs. Below left is the video of Winter pruning wisteria which should make it easier and clearly shows the flowering spurs. 

Failure to prune regularly is one of the common causes why Wisteria fails to flower so you can be sure if you don't prune it the flowers will get less and less over the years.

Just pruning it makes me long for spring. Sowing sweet peas today and it will be interesting to see how the sweet peas I sow now compare with the sweet peas sown last autumn.