Every April the South goes lavender along its roadsides and fencerows, and every April somebody decides they want that. It is worth knowing what that plant is before you plant it. Most of the wisteria running loose in the Southeast is Asian, and a genetic survey of naturalized populations found that the great majority were not Wisteria sinensis or Wisteria floribunda at all but a hybrid of the two, Wisteria × formosa, which is why the roadside vine so often refuses to match anything in the key. Those vines climb sixty feet, put on trunks like a small tree, and have pulled porches off houses that were standing when they were planted.

The American wisterias are a different proposition entirely, and they are the reason this collection exists. Wisteria frutescens and its close kin Wisteria macrostachya, the Kentucky wisteria, are natives of the Southeast, twining a third the distance and carrying nothing like the same ambition. They flower on new wood, on the current season's growth, which is the difference that matters most in practice: cut an Asian wisteria at the wrong moment and you may wait two or three years for flowers to come back, while an American wisteria can be cut hard in late winter and lose nothing at all. They bloom about two weeks later than the Asian kinds, after the leaves are out, so the flowers sit against green rather than bare wood. That seems a fair trade.

We grow the selections we think are worth the trellis. Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls' is the compact one, blooming young and often twice in a season. 'Clara Mack' is a Woodlanders introduction, a white-flowered macrostachya with the long racemes that species is known for. 'Nivea' is the rare white form of the plain native, brought into the trade from the Henry Foundation in Pennsylvania. And 'Dam B' came out of East Texas by way of the plantsman Lynn Lowrey, carrying a story as good as its flowers.

All of them want the same things: full sun for real bloom, moist and well-drained soil, and, before anything else, something strong enough to hold them. A wisteria is a permanent structural load, not a seasonal decoration, so settle the support before you settle the plant. Find more climbers among our Vines, and the rest of the regional natives in our Southeastern Natives.