The
Glycine Sinensis (the correct name for the
wisteria in Victorian times), a glorious, hardy climber,
was first introduced into Britain from China by Captain
Welbank in 1816 and was first grown in the garden of
Charles Hampden Turner, Esq., Rook's-nest-park, near
Godstone in Surrey.
There
is quite a story to the first attempts to grow this
in England. Initially the specimen was kept in the peach-house
(a glasshouse
set against a south-facing wall) in a temperature of
84 d. Fahrenheit.
Within
weeks it was almost destroyed by vermin.
The
heat was then reduced to 60 Fahrenheit, which resulted
in the vermin vanishing, but the plant still did not
recover well.
Early
in August the gardener, D. McLeod, removed it from the
wall of the peach-house, set it in a pot of vegetable
mould, and tied its branches to a stick. In the month
of September it lost all its leaves. It spend the winter
on the floor of the greenhouse in a dark, cool spot,
in which situation the mould in the pot froze three
times during the winter. By March it was showing flower
buds, and the gardener took its life in his hands and
planted it outside, where it showed that it was hardy
enough to survive the English climate.
The
wisteria was not, apparently, the first introduced plant
the early Victorians almost killed with heat and kindness.
By
the late nineteenth century the wisteria was a popular
garden climber - it survived in most soils, but preferred
a deep, rich, warm loam of a light character.
The
white wisteria was introduced in 1846.
