Wisteria

Our family moved to the Lake Charles area from north Louisiana when I was a child – before I had started to school. Mom and dad and my aunt and uncle bought lots next to each other on a little dead end street. There was a dead end street behind us. We were, by most accounts, a good ways out of town so it was pretty rural. There were only two lots on one side of our little street (ours and my aunt and uncle’s) and one across the street. There were no houses on the dead end street behind us, except a couple way at the other end, the entire time I lived there.

Wisteria had about taken over the woods and it was almost impossible to get rid of, even in our area where dad and my uncle maintained their yards. It can be a bit of a pain but it’s so pretty and has a great smell (or a bad smell, depending on the variety)

When I saw some at the garden center here, they reminded me of my childhood days and I wanted to plant them. I had several ideas about where we could plant them but I didn’t want them near the house, nor did I want them near a tree. They can get their little runners behind the siding of the house and as they grow, they will pop the siding right off. Vince kept wanting to plant it under the deck and saying he would keep it trimmed. I told him . . it’s wisteria . . it’s sneaky!

There’s a spot on the side in the front where I’d like to put a little table and chairs and sit out in the evenings and we thought about building an arbor type thing there but it would be close enough to trees that the wisteria could get in there.

In the end, we decided to plant it in front of the solar panels but about 8 – 10′ back from them. We’ll be able to keep it trimmed to keep it from getting to the solar panels and messing up the wiring under them. Vince has some kind of long cutters and even a small chain saw that are on poles for reaching up high so hopefully he’ll be able to keep them trimmed without requiring climbing up on a ladder when he’s 80 years old.