Wild About Wisteria

As I was rushing into town yesterday, driving a few miles over the speed limit for no reason at all, I turned down a remote country road and was greeted by purple – bunches of wisteria growing up towering oaks and pines on both sides of the road like purple walls. The trees made a tunnel over the pavement, and that purple went all the way around in a natural arch so that it felt like I was entering a magical purple passageway. I slowed the car then rolled down my window and inhaled the fresh fragrance of spring in the South – a sweet smell that I'd pay a high price for if it was a designer perfume. I’d wear that perfume every day of my life.

Yesterday, I saw that lavender and was immediately reminded of that line from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Amen, Alice. Amen. How could you not notice wisteria? How could you walk or drive by it without pausing to appreciate it?

But I suppose that some folks feel that wisteria is a nuisance because it spreads like kudzu and can be hard to control. But then again, why try to control nature? There’s something downright mesmerizing about the way it claims its space, weaving into the landscape with such wild aban- don. I've always loved wisteria – the rich purple color of the blooms and the way they cascade like bunches of grapes, dangling here and there in a lavish display. I grow it here in Northwest Georgia, and when we lived in Warner Robins, I grew it there, too.

One of my fondest memories is visiting my Grandmother Maggie Lanier and Aunt Colleen Lanier just north of Metter when I was a child. It was just before or after Easter as I recall, and they had let a wisteria vine or two take over the front porch that year, almost totally encapsulating it. When it bloomed that year, it was something else – one of the most magical, magnificent things I’d ever laid my eyes on. My sister, Audrey, and I, both little girls, sat in her porch swings inside the cave of wisteria, and we breathed in the heavenly fragrance of spring, admired all the purple, and listened to the buzz of bees all over its blooms. That wisteria sang to our senses of sight, sound, and smell. It’s as if we were part of the wisteria itself, and it was a happy place for us.

Native to China and Japan, this deciduous vine has been cultivated for thousands of years. It was first used in China to make dyes before the Japanese discovered its beauty as an ornamental plant and began tend- continued from page

ing it for use in gardens. Its popularity spread, and it was introduced to Europe in the 1700s and first planted in the U.S. sometime around 1816. It was named after botanist William Wister, who studied it during his travels through Japan.

In ancient China, wisteria was used as a medicinal plant, while elsewhere the vines adorned the gardens of Versailles for fragrant decor. Napoleon planted them along the roadside and around his estate, while Thomas Jefferson wrote about them extensively and had a few growing at Monticello. They’re even mentioned in Shakespearean literature. Today, wisteria grows wild up trees, utility poles and across fences and walls across America.

I am simply wild about wisteria. There’s something about its unrestrained beauty and intoxicating fragrance that speaks to something deep inside me – that part of me that feels completely alive when I’m outside among trees, plants and wildlife. Perhaps it’s the memory of those childhood moments on my grandmother’s porch, or maybe it’s the way it transforms ordinary landscapes into something extraordinary. In a world that often feels complicated and divided, wisteria reminds us that beauty can still flourish wildly, without permission or apology. And perhaps that’s exactly what the world needs more of right now – not just carefully curated beauty, but the kind that overtakes us unexpectedly, inviting us to pause, breathe deeply, and remember what it feels like to be amazed.