The Wisteria Vine

"Wisteria", Mr. says with the implied "curses" after. A stray white wisteria vine is making its way slowly through one of our fig trees. When we bought the house, the wisteria had taken over the fig trees, wholly and completely. I think it took him an entire weekend to free the figs. And so we enjoy figs each summer. Every now and again a rogue vine sprouts up and the armistice is broken.

That is how most wisteria vines grow, with a haphazard nonchalance. Taking over whatever is in its path without regard to the tender of the garden. From fig trees to power lines, the wisteria vines creep their way around the South. Tolerated only for the fragrant white or purple blossoms. Purple wisteria is my favorite. When I was little I thought they were grapes, the mass of tumbling blooms turning into clusters of fruit, and I still believe they smell like grapes. My grandmother's house had a gigantic, and I do mean gigantic, wisteria vine, and by vine I mean tree, the foliage of which created the roof of her front porch. The vine, once tiny, was trained to climb up through the carefully placed hole in the porch floor and it spread out along the beams of the open porch-roof. As the years went by the tiny vine became a tree. When she died, the wisteria tree was about four  feet in diameter at its largest part with individual vines, each thick and sturdy, wrapping and winding around the other in a strong yet delicate embrace as they reached for the sunlight.

This is the front door to her house. It was always blue.  

You can see the trunk here. 

There was a white wisteria trellis that covered the walk from her kitchen door to the garage. The vine was large, but not as strong as the one out front. It consisted of many smaller vines woven together in their stroll up the trellis posts to the top. I never thought that it looked or smelled like grapes and only really appreciated this vine when I got older.

I have never seen a wisteria tree like the one on my grandmother's front porch. I don't think people tend to  wisteria vines as she did. Training and pruning. Winding the individual vines around the others over and over again until a trunk forms that is sturdy enough to support a lush and living roof.  Pruning back the leaves on the roof with a gas-powered trimmer because they were so thick, intending that they grow back more beautiful the next spring.  Over 50 years of training and pruning. Tending. Tending to make something so beautifully wild, so beautifully strong.

Her house burned about a year or two after she died. Burned to the ground. I had to see the place. Some of my family didn't want to, but I did.  We drove up the driveway to rubble. All was lost but the wisteria tree. The side of the trunk closest to the house was charred, the support beams of the porch roof burned away. But it was there.

This was taken one summer. 

This is a side view of the porch and purple vine. 

There is more to this story! Click here to see how it all began.