Wisteria

Wisteria is a climber ligneous plant originating from China and Japan. Its flowers’ bunches can be white, mauve or purple, and often are very perfumed. Its beautiful foliage changes in colour during the whole season. The mostly cultivated variety is ‘’Wisteria sinensis’’, commonly called « Glycine de Chine ».

 

The Latin name of Wisteria was given in homage to Doctor Caspar Wistar, anatomist of Pennsylvania’s University.

Cultivating of Wisteria does not cause problems to gardeners, It likes sunny exposures and sandy but not too chalky grounds and grows very fast. Being able to reach from 8 to 10 meters high in good conditions.

Wisteria must be regularly trimmed and ‘’palissés’’ (tied up), same as climbing roses.

Passionate by oriental plants, Monet gave a first choice place to Chinese Wisteria in the water garden close to bamboos and peonies. He made two varieties, a mallow and a white one (Wisteria floribinda ‘Alba’) climb onto the trellis fencing of the Japanese bridge. According to Georges Truffaut, mallow flowers where, at this time, decorating the upper part while white bunches where hanging down. The sometimes heady perfume of these flowers made Marc Elder write, in his book « A Giverny, chez Claude Monet », that, when passing on the bridge, he had the feeling of walking in a vanilla tube…

 

Wisterias and their reflects in water also inspired lots of works to Monet between the years 1905 and 1910. Around the year 1920, they always where present in his painting, often reduced to almost totally abstract colour touches.

The Japanese bridge’s Wisterias always are the ones Monet planted. White on one side and mallow on the other one, flowers blend at the top of the bridge. Wisterias flower from April till June, and are particularly open out and perfumed during May. According to the weather forecast, the blue Wisteria often happens to flower before the white one !