The root of 3
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Your support makes all the difference.Three plants that look good together:
Wisteria floribunda 'Macrobotrys'
Ceanothus thyrisflorus var. repens
Geranium x oxonianum 'Wargrave Pink'
Wisterias are deservedly popular and widely grown to scramble over pergolas and walls, but they also make spectacular specimen bushes or small standard trees if trained correctly. All you need is patience.
Choose the Japanese wisteria, Wisteria floribunda "Macrobotrys", for it is less vigorous and more easily tamed. Restrict it to one main shoot and make sure it has the support of a sturdy stake. When it reaches the height you want, cut the stem at a convenient bud and it will sprout branches that you can begin to train horizontally.
For the first two years, just give these branches support and allow them to radiate from the centre to establish a framework you like. Then prune annually, removing the longest, whippy growths and cutting back new shoots to the second bud in late summer. Grown as sprawling bushes, perhaps 7ft high and as much across, Wisterias look extremely effective, or they can be trained into small weeping trees.
Quickly and naturally the branches become gnarled and twisted - beautiful in their own right - but it is for their blooms that Wisterias are best known. They are notorious for being slow to flower but it is worth the wait. This variety will reward you with the most magnificent of Wisteria flowers - waterfalls of pale lilac, pea-like blossoms in weeping, fragrant clusters more than 3ft long.
A little way in front of the Wisteria and just to one side, plant the Creeping Blue Blossom, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. repens, from coastal areas of northern California. Give it some room to grow, for this evergreen shrub will make a dense mound 3ft high and as much as 8ft across. It has dark green, oval leaves but in mid-spring these are lost in a haze of rich blue flowers.
In summer, it will echo the larger mound of Wisteria foliage behind it and in winter it will provide a strong outline to contrast with the Wisteria's contorted, leafless skeleton.
Finally, plant a few clumps of the vigorous, evergreen Geranium x oxonianum "Wargrave Pink". Few plants are tougher, easier or more obliging. No patience will be needed. It will quickly form an undulating sea of soft, weed-smothering foliage around its companions, sprawling, if you let it, into their lowest branches. Without fuss it will produce salmon-pink flowers from late spring to autumn, and even in mild winter months.
John the Gardener
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