What you need to know
- 2024 Wistaria Festival in Sierra Madre
- March 17th. Free street fair.Shuttle tickets for those who want to see the wisteria vines range from $5 to $15.
- The giant wisteria vine was planted in a private garden in 1894.Although flowering is difficult to predict, guests can see the famous plants up close
Southern Californians love to show off their quirky local words and phrases. Consider automatically adding “the” before highway numbers. However, unusual spellings in our region also play an interesting role.
Wisteria is a curling, twisting, flower-dripping vine that puts on a lush purple show from late March to April.
Spelled with a middle “e” in most places, Sierra Madre, a San Gabriel Valley hamlet, has become synonymous with this showy specimen, at least in the hearts of many grape lovers.
The one with the “a” firmly in the middle is definitely wisteria. This is an old-fashioned and charming paraphrase, but Sierra Madre also boasts exactly that quality.
But this picturesque city has something else to boast about. It's a wisteria vine, “the world's largest flowering plant,” planted in 1894 in a private garden near the mountains.
The Guinness Book of World Records recognized this lavender leviathan. A huge body covered in flowers, he now spreads over an area of about 2 meters.
Of course, these gardens are not visible for most of the year, except on a special Sunday in March.
At that time, flower fans can take a shuttle bus from the center of the Sierra Madre to the homes in the hills to pay amazing homage to this viral vine.
What are some things you need to know ahead of the March 17th event? It's not always easy to predict vine flowering. Some years it's dripping with dreamy purple petals, and other years it's just a few flowers just beginning to bloom.
A shuttle takes people up a large hill to a place where wisteria flowers grow. Tickets range from $5 to $15.
But if you want to stroll through the quaint Wisteria Festival, a street fair held a few blocks south of the Vineyard? You can.
Admission is free, the atmosphere is lively, and the booths are filled with handmade items for sale. Look out for small bite features like live music and food trucks.
If you're looking to capture some of the purple vibrancy associated with the venerable wisteria vine, there are plenty of wisteria flower designs on sale.
In other words, residents can be proud of a power plant that currently weighs well over 250 tons.
So from now on, will you use the common spelling, “wisteria”, or will you use “wistaria”, in honor of the Sierra Madre?
Southern California has many linguistic and literary characteristics. Among them is the interesting fact that one local city continues to use an unusual spelling for the much-loved vine.