LEXINGTON, Ky. - Jackie Cooke planted a wisteria vine five years ago, and each spring, she dreamed of seeing the back of her house smothered in fragrant purple blooms.

She waited and waited. No luck. Until this year.

And wow! It's a knockout. The vine climbed to a second-floor deck and exploded over the railing in a purple cloud of flowers.

"I was getting ready to dig it up because I didn't think it would happen," said Cooke, of Lexington, Ky. Her only reason for hesitating was that the wisteria was a Mother's Day gift from her husband, Glenn.

Cooke attributes the blooms to garden advice passed along by an acquaintance, who said hitting the trunk of the vine with a baseball bat would cause it to bloom.

More about wisteria abuse in a minute.

Several years ago, I asked William Fountain, a horticulture professor at the University of Kentucky who specializes in woody plants, why it's so hard to get wisteria to bloom. With seed-grown wisteria, it is a maturity factor, Fountain said.

It can sometimes take 15 years or longer for wisteria to bloom. For that reason, he said, make sure you buy wisteria grown from a cutting or grafted onto old root stock. If the hang tag is not clear on this point, ask a sales assistant.

Back to abusing wisteria with a baseball bat or whatever else you have at hand: Fountain said severely root-pruning wisteria with a shovel can sometimes put the plant under enough stress to shock it out of its juvenile state and into maturity.

Other people have their own methods of putting wisteria into a state of shock. Jonathan Berry's wisteria was beautiful this spring. It has bloomed before, but the vine is so aggressive, Berry runs over parts of it with the lawn mower in the summer. He has chopped branches back unmercifully in the 20 years that he and his wife have lived in Lexington.

"You have to keep it cut back, or its branches reach clear out over to the house," Berry said.

Ted Collins, executive director of development at Central Baptist Hospital, read in a book about Southern culture that one family thrashed their wisteria with chains to get it to bloom.

Collins, who designed and planted a beautiful landscape at the hospital thrashed one of the wisterias at the base of the trunk with a weed eater. "We skinned it up pretty good."

That one bloomed. The one not thrashed didn't bloom at all.

The following questions about wisteria were answered by Tina Peffer, assistant garden center manager at Wilson Nurseries in Frankfort, Ky.<B>QUESTION: Where do wisteria like to grow?</B>ANSWER: They do best in average soil and full sun but will grow in less-than-ideal conditions, such as partial sun.<B>QUESTION: Why won't my wisteria bloom?</B>ANSWER: Wisteria vines grown from seed can take 15 to 20 years to bloom. Look for new cultivars that will flower in two or three years.<B>QUESTION: What does cultivar mean?</B>ANSWER: If you sow 50 seeds of any species, the result is not 50 identical plants, as the seeds are the result of sexual propagation between plants. A cultivar is propagated asexually by some type of vegetative propagation, such as a cutting or grafting.<B>QUESTION: Can I do anything to get an existing wisteria to bloom?</B>ANSWER: Before you give up on a non-bloomer, root-prune hard (take a shovel into the dirt and chop the roots near the trunk) and apply super-phosphate. If it doesn't bloom after that, replace it with American wisteria.<B>QUESTION: What are the different kinds of wisteria?</B>ANSWER: Most old wisteria are Chinese (Wisteria sinensis) or Japanese (W. floribunda). The advantage of Chinese is it gets 30 feet tall, is very aggressive and very fragrant, and it has large, long blooms.American wisteria (W. fructensis) is new on the market. It grows only 15 to 20 feet tall, is not as aggressive as Chinese, and usually blooms in its first three years. A popular cultivar is "Amethyst Falls."<B>QUESTION: When do you prune?</B>ANSWER: Prune in late winter or early spring.<B>QUESTION: Does wisteria have any serious insect or disease problems?</B>ANSWER: Generally not.<B>QUESTION: Should you fertilize wisteria?</B>People like to fertilize wisteria. That produces lots of foliage but few blooms. To encourage blooms, use a high-phosphate, low-nitrogen fertilizer. There's a triple-phosphate fertilizer good for many flowering shrubs that don't bloom, such as hydrangeas.<B>QUESTION: Will wisteria climb a wall?</B>ANSWER: It will not climb straight up a wall like ivy. Wisteria is a very strong vine that needs a sturdy structure to twine on, like a pergola or tree. Don't plant on a trellis or a delicate picket fence. The vine will absolutely break them down. Also, don't plant next to your house, as it will tear down gutters and break roof tiles.<B>QUESTION: How do I grow wisteria as a small tree?</B>ANSWER: Take one shoot and train it up a sturdy stake to about five or six feet. Remove all suckers and shoots from the trunk. Cut off the top. This removes the growing tip. Cut off all new shoots below four feet. When shoots above four feet are about 20 inches long, prune back to the first or second set of leaves.Do this for a couple of years to develop a wisteria with a strong trunk and self-supporting branches.