Wisteria: is this a suitable location?

Yorky

I would like to plant wisteria beside my front door without digging up the concrete footpath. There's a drainage channel between the path and the house to prevent damp penetration where the footpath rises to the front door.

I'm considering digging out a stretch of the channel (to the right of the gully), say 60cm long and as deep as possible, say 60cm again, placing a plastic membrane against the house wall and filling it with soil and fertilizer and then planting the wisteria. The channel is 10cm wide. The wall is east facing.

Supports could be fixed to the wall and the canopy would act as an additional support. Any advice would be appreciated. Here are some photographs:

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Kilnadrain/Wisterialocation1.jpg
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Kilnadrain/Wisterialocation2.jpg
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Kilnadrain/Wisterialocation.jpg

old boy

the old rule of thumb, buy a plant for a quid dig a 20 quid hole, i.m.o. you will have to break a section of the concrete path to enable a suitable planting hole to be dug, do not despair, you can repair the path using a piece of ply or whatever takes your fancy restrain the concrete, (shuttering) the most inportant part is that the flow of the water is not into the plant.

Yorky

Thanks for the reply but would still like it against house wall.

Have had another look at location and there is a large south facing wall which has a concrete footpath abutting it.

If a 'cube' of concrete and hardcore was to be removed, would it be alright to fill it with soil and plant it there? If so what dimensions should the hole be and would the fact that it is surrounded by stone and concrete affect the growth?

There would be soil directly against the foundation walls but the DPC would be 150mm/6 inches above ground level.

The Sweeper

It's digging the hole that's the problem, not really the room for the plant. It's not that the Wisteria will have a huge trunk when mature, but whatever you're planting, the larger a soil area you prepare, the better the plant will do. If you're planting something from a five in inch pot, you need to dig a hole at least 10 inches across and 10 inches deep. If I were digging in clay, I'd double that and go to a foot and a half wide and deep with sloped sides and a flat bottom - like a wok.

Preparation is the first key, and aftercare is the second. If you're planting this in a sheltered spot where it won't get much rain runoff, you will need to water it in very well for at least the first year, and never let it dry out again after that. If you don't remember to water it and feed it you might as well just spend your money on something else.

Feeding it could be difficult if there isn't much soil access around the trunk of the plant, because many slow release fertilisers should never be applied any closer to the trunk of the plant than 30cms.