At last, wisteria!

From my vantage point in the office at what I am going to call chez nous campagne, I have a perfect view of the wisteria that atops the kitchen door which gives onto the cobbled yard. It is divine. Long delicate grape-like bunches of pale lavender coloured flowers hang delicately amidst the fresh, cool foliage. A wisteria in full bloom never fails to fill me with positive, slightly nostalgic feelings and to improve or further enhance my mood.

I have had an extended relationship with this superb shrub. Fascinated since a visit to Sissinghurst, once the home of Vita Sackville-West, many moons ago, it has been an ambition of mine to possess a wisteria, if such a thing were possible.

Back in 1988 when recently moved to a house in London, SW19, we were given maybe 3 small sticks purporting to be wisteria. These we dutifully planted and tended with some success, at least on the leaf front. The fence beside which I had planted these fledglings was swathed in wisteria potential. The garden immediately behind was the home to an established shrub which blossomed abundantly every year to my part pleasure - from the first floor back window - and part disappointment and envy. This chagrin was compounded by our next-door neighbours who somehow managed to get onto such good terms with said wisteria's proprietors that they were allowed to unfurl many metres of foliage and flowers and deck them around their own garden. Instant wisteria!

Of course this was completely unacceptable and unreasonable. We were scandalized and outraged, quite justifiably.

I moved out of the house after six years without seeing as much as one frond of flowers on our authentic plant. True to form of course the next year it flowered.

One of the biggest thrills of becoming the new owners of 34JJR is that at last I have a mature wisteria plant, indeed the main stem is almost a trunk as it is so established. I think perhaps Madame Herbeau may have been a little over zealous in her pruning and the late spring means that it was nowhere near as advanced as the one I gaze at here. No matter, I have that to look forward to maybe in a couple of weeks and certainly next year.

I shall wait wistfully.