Wisteria
This wonderful deciduous creeper would rate as one of the best garden plants in Australia when grown well. Wisteria are happy to grow in most conditions but prefer full sun in moist well drained soil.
Amethyst
Very fragrant, darker reddish-violet flowers on 20cm long racemes. Young Spring leaves are deep bronze, before turning green.
Black Dragon
Spectacular double dark purple-violet flowers, slightly scented with racemes about 35cm long.
Blue Pacific
An extremely heavy flowering form that is very highly scented. Bright blue-violet racemes up to 30cm long.
Blue Velvet
The flowers are blue-mauve in colour on wide, 20cm long racemes. It will consistently flower into summer.
Caroline
Flowers open mauve-lilac and fade to a delightful silvery white shade. Strongly scented.
Geisha
A narrow, densely packed, 35-40cm long racemes with anything up to 160 individual florets in a pleasing pale blue.
Harlequin
A lovely soft mauve variety with light green spring leaves and a good scent.
Jako
A white heavy flowering form that is exceptionally fragrant.
Lawrence
Magnificent long, pale-blueish to violet flowers. Each raceme about 50cm long and sweetly scented.
Okayama
This is a rich purple coloured wisteria which is strongly scented and flowers very well through Spring and Summer.
Peaches and Cream
The individual florets are pink tinted with lavender and have a yellow blotch. It is delicately scented.
Pink Chiffon
Initially buds arrive in a rich deep pink that become much paler upon opening.
Purple Patches
It has purple-mauve flowers with a moderate scent on racemes of about a metre in length.
White Delite
Long white racemes with a distinct purple dot and a small splash of light yellow.
White Silk
Pure creamy white flowers on racemes up to 20cm. Strongly and sweetly scented.
We graft all of our wisterias to ensure our customers receive plants with early vigor and flowering. This is a fast growing climber that will flower more prolifically if the new season’s growth is pruned by three quarters in summer (when the leaves are still on) NOT in winter. Note that pruning when the climber has shed its leaves will almost ensure little to no flowers the following spring, as the growth which produces new flowers will have been removed.
Colours range from white, pink, blue, mauve, violet and purple on several different varieties. The spring flowers of most are highly scented and several have good autumn foliage. Wisteria make spectacular specimens; are magnificent over a pergola, they perform well in containers and can also easily be grown as free-standing shrubs or standards. Unless you are a vigilant gardener and will prune regularly, we recommend to not have them connected to the house; use a free-standing structure or walkway.
The main varieties are Floribunda (Japanese), Brachybotrys (Japanese) and Sinensis (Chinese). There are also Wisteria Frutescens and Wisteria Macrostachya, both native to North America, but their cultivars are poor cousins and we do not produce them anymore. There are also quite a few hybrids, a few of which we grow today. Raraflora has grown over 70 different wisteria varieties over the past 20 years and we have reduced our list to focus only on the premium varieties.
An unfortunate downside to this plant is that wisterias are quite easy to propogate from seeds and so are quite often sold at local markets as well as retail nurseries. Unfortunately what many sellers won’t tell you, is that when grown from seed, wisterias are unlikely to be identical to the parents, and may take many, many years to flower, or may never flower at all. These cheaper alternatives won’t provide a saving at all, when you wait year after year for the beautiful blooms to arrive. We recommend that if you can’t find what you are looking for in our online shop, buy wisterias through a reputable retail nursery and look out for those that are marked as “grafted”. Better yet, go shopping in spring and buy those with blooms on them in the pot.