Wisteria Hysteria

Wisteria blossoms, Meeting St., Charleston, SC 

I can't resist directing my morning walk towards this wisteria display on Meeting St. each year. It is one of the annual traditions I look forward to and would hate to miss. I've been busy lately and my Magnolia annual pass needs to be renewed but I made sure to enjoy some spring blossoms this morning.

Wisteria Party

Wisteria blossoms, Charleston, SC   

There are pop-up wisteria parties all over the lowcountry at the moment and this display is one I always make a spring visit to on Meeting St. I believe I could stay there all day taking pictures of tourists in front of the wall of blossoms. Charleston is a garden at the moment. Enjoy!

Spring garden with wisteria

Rutledge Ave., Charleston, SC  

I had hinted that my friend Jerry Lee on Rutledge Ave. shouldn't be surprised to find a trespasser in his garden when his wisteria bloomed - that I would only be taking pictures. He went the extra mile and invited me over for dinner on his piazza overlooking this scene last night. Isn't this glorious? We can't resist the show this year. I kept slipping away from the table to take another picture.

I am not the only one capturing the purple blossoms. Check out the Cotton Boll Conspiracy blog for some lovely photos.

Open season on wisteria photography

Wisteria, Meeting St., Charleston, SC   

It's like hunting season - open season on wisteria photography. We come home pleased if we've bagged a keeper shot. One of the prime locations is lower Meeting St. where the blossoms flow over a white fence. Glorious! Many thanks to the home owners. I would be happy if they put a tip jar out. I'd contribute a little each year to their maintenance costs.

The bottom photo is from another location on King St.

Wisteria Hysteria

Wisteria, Charleston, S.C.

I do a wisteria post each year - click here for past wisteria hysteria. A beautiful blanket of lavender vines has been flung over the lowcountry.

Retrospect

I saw again our own sweet home
Half hidden 'mong the trees,
My parents, brothers, sisters and I,
As happy and busy as bees.

Around the door of the homestead,
The sweet Wisteria vines,
And on the old oak in the yard
The clinging ivy twines.

 Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard

 

Wisteria in the churchyard

St. John's Lutheran Churchyard, Charleston, S.C.

Wisteria-Hysteria

No fair maid of Algeria,
muchacha from Iberia,
has beauty that’s superior
to flowering wisteria.
Some call her purple, some say mauve,
I fancy her, for she is fauve.
Wisterially, I’m feeling chauv-
inistic for her in her grove.
With blossom purple and imperious
she beckons to me, mauve, mysterious,
and draws me to her, mute but serious,
and wonderful and wild, wisterious.
Gershon Hepner

As I searched for a Wisteria related poem to go along with my images, I discovered that McClellanville has an annual Wisteria parade. I couldn't find any dates listed for this year but they may not be trying to draw outside attention to it. Cool!