Wisteria

Depending on your experience with Wisteria, you love it, or you hate it. Either way, you have to admit that it's a powerful plant. 

Wisteria needs lots of support, or it will buckle your wood. Nothing less than a 6x6 should be used.

This wisteria grows up concrete and brick pillars.

A single Wisteria in my grandfather's yard grew vines from his deck through his potting shed, ripping out the wood siding, propping the windows and doors open and wreaking havoc. As a kid, it was an important lesson to learn that nature is powerful and just because things don't happen quickly, it doesn't mean there wont be major repercussions.
As an adult, I imagine that my green-thumbed grandpa knew what was going on in the potting shed. He sat out on his deck year 'round and enjoyed tending to his little veggie garden and grape vines. I understand now why he was so proud of those "yucky" onions and radishes. I'd like to think my grandpa made a decision to let the wisteria take over his shed, just to see what would happen.

A potting shed

This weekend, through a frustrating set of circumstances spanning two months, I have decided to prune my wisteria. It hasn't been clipped off the side of our house in a year, and although that may sound romantic, like an english garden... with the beautiful, purple flowers canvassing the side of a large brick home... it's not. The vines creep under our roofing tiles, through our window screens and into our house vents, then they harden into wood branches and their diameter thickens. If it's not trimmed up each year, it can wreak havoc and cause a lot of damage. 

I watched this "How to Prune Your Wisteria" video and learned how to get more blooms out of my wisteria.
Tomorrow, I'll drag the ladder out of the garage and risk my life on the rooftop to clip back the wisteria. This summer, I'm sure you'll see lots of photos of the purple flowers, cascading from above.

I had to clip a hole in the vines and climb to the top of the ladder, through the support beams to reach the branches on the roof.

The wisteria is now off the roof and showing lots of flower buds. I can't wait until the purple flowers pop out!