Here is a close up picture as well.

Cheers,
Tammy

You won't need to tie the wisteria to the pergola pillar - it will quickly latch onto the pillar once the wisteria is settled and putting out new growth, although it may help to guide the new growth to/around the pillar. Note the direction (counter-clockwise) that the vine naturally twines in and let it wrap around the pillar in that direction. Removing the stake in the pot as soon as you can is a good idea because, yes indeed, the support stake will get embedded in the trunk as the vine coils around it. The original stake we used to support our Japanese wisteria tree is now a permanent part of the tree! Apparently, in the UK, most Victorian-era wisteria trees have an iron stake in their heart :-) Cutting one of those wisteria trees down could be a hazardous operation for anyone who wasn't aware of that! Having the stake in the tree trunk doesn't seem to harm the tree.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'prune the bottom' - if you were trying to grow it as a tree you'd probably want to keep the lower trunk bare of foliage. Growing it on a trellis/pergola structure makes that less important but you probably will want to keep the growth concentrated on the top, so may find it best to keep the bottom of the stems bare. It's almost impossible to over prune a wisteria and pruning it helps promote flowering wood development so worry more about not pruning enough rather that pruning too much!

Thanks Woodyoak!

I think you are right. I probably got mixed up with the pruning method for training it as a tree. I'll try to remember not to be too timid on the pruning though.

This site (Farmer's Almanac) mentions pruning Wisteria severely right after planting. That sounds a little drastic though!

From the site:
"Do you have a new wisteria? Cut the vine back severely right after planting. Then, the next year, cut the main steam or stems back to 3 feet of the previous season's growth. Once the framework is full size, shorten further extension growth in midsummer to where growth began for that season."

By the way, I loved the bit of lore about the heart of the Wisteria! That's so interesting! It's such a romantic plant. I think I will probably give it a few more weeks before I pull the stakes out and hope the new growth I've tied to the post has begun to take hold a bit. I did wrap it counter-clockwise so I guess I did that part right!

Warm regards:)

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Farmer's Almanac

When we were contemplating planting our first wisteria, we did a lot of reading about pruning. A lot of the advice seemed unduly complicated and/or had no reasonable explanation of why the proposed method made sense! Some of it was so picky-detailed that it's no wonder a lot of people just give up when the vine is in growth-overdrive :-) We did what made most sense to us from what we understood of how they grow and mature. Basically, we decided on the 'look' we wanted to show off the flowers best for the particular type of wisteria - that led to a logical framework the vine needed to be encouraged - by pruning - to develop. Then we pruned all new growth back into that framework as the growth appeared. Frequent pruning both helps keep the plant neat and controlled, and also encorages it to develop flowering wood. Pruning is a weekly chore here when the vines/trees are in maximum growth!

There's not as much information around on the American wisterias but the little I can find that seems reliable would indicate that they also develop the woody spurs that signal ready-to-flower-maturity. When you cut back the new growth, you don't want to cut it off entirely as it will form the basis for producing those spurs. So leave 6-8" or so when you cut back. Prune, prune, prune and full sun is the recipe for flowering wisterias. The species 'Blue Moon' belongs to may need more water than the Chinese or Japanese ones so be sure to water well.

Your vine will likely wrap around those posts as tightly as it would around any support stake - I'll bet in 5-6 years it would be impossible to unwind it from the trellis/pergola. I don't know what the lifespan of your posts will be but I'll bet the wisteria could easily outlive the wooden supports and eventually either effectively become the support or require supplemental metal support if the posts rot out at the base years from now!

I think the flowers on the 'Blue Moon' are going to display best like a Japanese wisteria - i.e. that the foliage is on the top with the flowers dangling free below it. So, in addition to shortening up all the new growth, you probably want to remove all foliage that tries to grow down from/through the top. A long-arm pruner tool like Lee Valley sells is a very useful thing to get. We couldn't maintain our wisterias without it.