These last two years have been a roller-coaster ride for wisterias. Reports of wisteria scale insect started to occur, being first identified in Wimbledon. Fortunately this insect cannot fly so it's spread has been slow, a Cambridge college has been infected but so far no reports in Oxford.

April/May 2011 was frost free and with out rain, and these were the perfect conditions for the Chinese wisterias to flower. 2012 looked like being a year hosepipe bans and March was warm and sunny. Then came frost and rain and the Chinese plants that had done well the year before lost their flowers to the weather. Simlarly the Japanese varieties suffered frosted buds, but where they escaped the cold their flowers were exceptional, perhaps benefitting from the wet start to flowering season.

Then as the poor summer continued many owners have had their plants hard pruned to try and get light back into their houses after the summer that never was.