SOME THOUGHTS ON WISTERIA
For years I’ve read fiction based in the South in which wisteria vines featured prominently in the background. Wisteria vines bring to mind cups of tea on the veranda enjoyed by frail little old ladies sipping with pinky fingers raised. Or dark, malevolent screened porches, with a dead body, pouring rain and flashes of lightning. Or hot as Hades summer days in Mississippi or trips to the Cotton Exchange in Savannah. Wisteria vines always add an air of gentility to the scene in a plot with sunshine, or pile on suspense in a mystery novel.
So you can imagine my delight when I discovered wisteria vines growing along our deck railings at the home we moved into not long ago. Providentially, our vines sported long purple blooms the week we arrived. I imagined drinking iced tea with my book group friends on hot summer evenings, surrounded by wisteria vines gently nodding in the breeze. I just knew that my vines would add to the mystique of my new home.
Since then I’ve learned a lot about wisteria. Did you know, for instance, that wisteria grows about a foot every hour? The first time I sat on our deck to read in the sunshine, it was only a few minutes before I noticed shadows creeping over the pages of my book. Looking up, I realized that the vine near my head seemed much closer than it had moments before. Surely I have Alzheimer’s, I thought, having just finished reading Still Alice. But no, moments later a small tendril wrapped itself around my wrist. I flicked it away and continued reading until two more vines wrapped themselves around my body. Ok, I thought. I’d better do a little trimming here before I finish my book.
I pulled my Christmas Tree Shop canvas yard barrel onto the deck to catch the clippings, slipped on my Carol Rock leather gardening gloves and grasping the clippers firmly, began to snip vines. I quickly learned that when I grabbed a vine and pulled it toward me to clip, it extended 10 feet more than I expected. Curly little buggers, I thought. (And of course they’d be curly; you’d have to be curly to be genteel or menacing…) Well, so it will take me a little longer than I thought. No problem—having wisteria is worth a little extra work.
An hour and two yard bags full of clippings later, either I had not made a dent in the wisteria or it was growing back faster than I could cut it. As this dark little thought flapped through my brain, I heard a vigorous crunching in the woods just off our yard, followed by what sounded like horses snorting and more crunching. Even the dogs looked alarmed. I went in the house. locked all the doors and waited until the crunching stopped. Much later I read that when bears (!) feel threatened, they snort like horses. Maybe bears are afraid of wisteria vines too.
Oh yeah, wisteria vines. Well, anyways, I went back to clipping when the bears left. I clipped for another hour or two, until I could tell the vines were trimmed. A week later, the vines looked lovely as they wound around what had been my deck chairs and table. Not discouraged, I headed out again with my Carol Rock gloves and clippers, and threw myself into the vines, in a hacking and slashing frenzy. By this time the vines had overtaken the eaves on the house and were forcing themselves under the siding. They had grown down the legs of the deck and were growing back up through the floorboards. I found vines 5 inches in diameter toward the center of the growth. Or at least I think they were big vines—it was hard to tell because it was pretty darn dark in there. I couldn’t even see our house from inside the wisteria.
It was while I was sawing at the interior vines that I began to feel thousands of deer tics hopping off the vines into my hair. I started swatting and scratching and imagining myself covered with bull’s eye rashes, lying in the hospital with IV antibiotics streaming into my veins. I decided it probably wasn’t so important to get the big vines in the middle.
I returned to clipping around the edges, until I began wondering if there were any creatures that could live in wisteria bushes. Heck, for all I knew, there could be weasels, badgers, porcupines, or skunks in there. The damn bush was big enough to support a whole colony of critters. Nah, I thought. Nah. I decided I had done enough clipping for the day, and returned my tools to the garage.
A few days later I was watching TV in the family room when I thought I saw something moving on the deck. It was a groundhog, scurrying across the deck flooring to disappear under the wisteria. Maybe I didn’t just see that, I thought, and returned to the TV. But no, wait, there it was again. In fact, the little guy (or girl—I’m not good at sexing groundhogs yet) toddled right up to the lowest pane of the French door, placed his paws delicately on the glass and leaned forward to peer into the house. Then he calmly disappeared into the vines again. (And he was limping, by the way, so I’ve been worried about him. On the other hand, maybe he was rabid and is out there waiting for me.)
I haven’t bothered much with the wisteria vines lately. And I can’t see my deck anymore, but the vines are thriving. One final wisteria thought: could the damn deer eat wisteria? They eat everything else: flowers, shrubs, my holly bushes, trees—heck, I’m surprised they don’t let themselves in while we’re away and eat our houseplants. But they do not eat wisteria.
The next time you’re watching a National Geographic TV show on the glories of nature, don’t be fooled. It’s dangerous out here!