Killer wisteria!
Okay, so do I win the wisteria contest if my vine is growing up a 40 foot mulberry tree???
When my husband and I planted this beautiful plant with the grape-like blossoms, we had no idea that it could take over the world! It reached out six or seven feet, grabbed hold of the then-living mulberry tree, and I thought, "Oh, won't that be beautiful!"
HA! Now the only way anyone can enjoy the bloom is to get a crick in their neck, looking up to the top of the tree -- which, I might add, is now DEAD! So much for symbiosis! How can something SO BEAUTIFUL be so DEADLY??
I first saw a wisteria, when I left my hometown of Dexter at the callow age of 17. Enrolled in SEMO, I lived at the old Leming Hall, which all you "mature" folks know, was where the University Center is now. I have warm memories of that ancient building with the tall windows and deep window seats.
In fact, everything in Cape was magic! I thought it had to be the most wonderful city in the world - and that campus was undoubtedly the most beautiful in existence!
Between Leming Hall and Kent Library was the most gorgeous, exotic bush I ever saw in my life. It was right in the front corner, probably ten feet in diameter, with those aromatic, lavendar, grape-like clusters. We walked past it every day when we went to class. Heavenly!
I don't know when the college - in all its collective wisdom - cut the wisteria down, but now that I know the plant better, I'm amazed that they were able to kill it. It seems pretty darned tough.
My son Matthew and I stood and looked at it today, and he said, "Well, I guess we're gonna have to cut it all out - tree, bush and all!" For once, I think he might be right.
However, if the wisteria does what it did at my mom's house in Springfield, I don't think we have to worry about it totally disappearing. I have a feeling that I'll need to get a BIG trellis ready for it when it rises from the dead!
Are there any wisteria experts out there to give advice??
From the green hills of Tillman, this is your rural reporter, wondering if wisteria can open doors??
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Kent Library has changed significantly. When I was there, you could read the names of the great authors across the top of the building. The main study area had long wooden desks with affixed lamps on each end.
We had to go get books up in the stacks, which had metal grid-work floors! I can't believe how the kids can lounge in comfort now!
I still remember the smell of the old library!
Wisteria may be like crepe myrtle, in that it's a bush in the more northern parts of the country and a tree in the more southerly regions. The crepe myrtles in Norfolk are definitely trees - and they're planted EVERYWHERE! In this part of the country, they're definitely a bush.
My wisteria has vines as big as my fist, and they twine around themselves. It'll take a chain saw to cut through them.
I very much like the idea of an arbor. Maybe I can hire the Mennonites to build me one!
Thanks for the advice!
There may actually be more fountains that you haven't seen -- Had they done the one in front of Kent Library when you were there?
We Leming girls had to go to Myers Hall to eat, since there was no longer a cafeteria at our dorm. Maybe that's another reason why I didn't have a weight problem back then. Who can chow down on food, when there are so many hot guys watching you??