Help!!! My wisteria is attacking from underground!

I have a wisteria arbour that is about 20 to 30 yrs old and very beautiful, though alot of work keeping it under control....the problem is that underground runners are sending up new plants in the garden around the arbour, and if I can pull them out at all, I can never get the entire vine! Some are as thick as a garden hose, and they in turn send up new runners and little plants that are choking and killing all of the other plants and flowers I have growing around them..

How can I keep the plant in check? Is there anything I can spray that isn't too bad for the environment on these unearthed vines (once I dig them up) to kill them? With the exception of one rose bush, it is possible for me to remove any desirable plants from the area while I do what has to be done, so I don't have to worry about killing the other things growing around the wisteria.

The only other option I have is to get rid of the wisteria entirely, which I don't want to do, but it is becomeing more and more work every year...Thanks....

that is why i dont have that plant,love the blooms but the plant wants to take over everything and i dont have the time to mess with it,i would love the tree form though,i hope someone can come along and help you on this one sorry i cant because i dont have one and not sure what would be good to get rid of it,but i would move the other plants anyway until you can get it under control or they might be history,
good luck

Sounds like you've got one of the aggressive Asian wisterias...unfortunately the only way to keep them under control is to remove them, and sometimes even that won't work. As long as the parent plant is there, you might temporarily get rid of some of the runners by pulling them out, but it'll keep making more so it'll be a neverending battle.

If you like the look of wisteria but want one that's not quite such a thug in the garden, the American wisteria W. frutescens is much better behaved (I think there may be one or two other American species as well)

It's a constant maintainence job, thats for sure!! Oh well, guess I will just keep digging and chopping...I am thinking about clearing out that area of the garden and just mulching it so that I can keep a better eye on the ground runners from the wisteria...if I have too many plants growing there, you don't see the sneaky little things until they are well established and then they put up quite a bit of resistance when you try to uproot them.

I will keep the American varieties in mind if I ever want to grow this plant in the future. For now, the one I have is so well enmeshed into the ground and over the arbour, it would be quite an undertaking to remove it! Other than the runner problem, I do enjoy the plant and don't mind keeping it trimmed back a few times a year.

Thanks for your help!

I'm not sure about this one but what I do for vines that you don't want babies Start it in a large pot and put it were you want it. As it grows and its good to go saw half the bottom of the pot off at the very bottom try not to cut the roots up.bury the pot half way in other words sink the pot has always worked for me with other vines. Hope this works for you

Too late here - that is for sure. We used a chain saw about 5 years ago to remove the bad boy . It had pulled the arbor loose from the house and was working its way under the roof. Yeah - right - and just yesterday, I noticed something as big as a garden hose wrapped all around a large leaf maple. While I can score the bark and thereby kill that "hose", it is just another bit of residual from the chain saw show. It will outlive me, that is for sure.

Once they get started roots under ground be there for ever. Everything here goes in the pot don't have time to slay all the monsters that follow lol