Hi everyone, I recently moved into a house that has Wisteria planted next to a trellis which is next to a fence. It is completely overgrown to the point that there aren't even any Wisteria leaves showing -- all I see are four or five canes coming out of the ground, heading up the trellis, and then disappearing over the fence into the neighbor's yard. It looks like five pieces of thick rope with no leaves or branching. From that point on it is difficult to determine what's going on; the neighbor has Bougainvillea planted at roughly the same spot on his side, and that has come over the fence and taken over the trellis. The Bougainvillea is so overgrown that I originally thought it was growing from *my* yard. Last weekend I removed a ton of dead wood, which revealed the Wisteria canes. Peering over the fence, it looks like a rats nest of 1" thick vines snaking all over the place. Hard to tell which vine belongs to which plant.

From reading up on Wisteria, it seems that you should prune it in late Summer after the flowers fade and also in Winter. However, I'm trying to get this garden under control now. Do you think it would be ok for the plant if I cut some or all Wisteria canes down to about 2'-3' in height now instead of waiting until Summer? That would allow it to start over and I could train it up the trellis and get some lateral branches, too.

I live in Southern California where the weather is relatively constant, I don't know if that affects the Summer/Winter pruning schedule or not.

Thanks for any advice!