if you scrape the branches and theres know life how ever silly it looks you will have to cut it back to good healthy wood or its probably going to die anyway . it will come back if its then healthy . i wonder what did this in the first place . perhaps it was the early very cold weather .

I just want to check what you mean by 'standard' wisteria - are you saying it has a long stem with no growth, and the wisteria is grafted on the top of the stem, and all growth comes from that?

I got your PM Julia, but will respond publicly for info for others if they're interested. You say it is a proper standard, and it is IF the graft point is at the top of that straight stem - should be a knobbly bit at the top with growth coming from that. If that's where its grafted, you can't cut back beyond that point, but you can reduce the one growth that's still alive in an attempt to encourage more shoots from the graft. As a standard, it will have been more vulnerable to the cold winter we've just had. Feed it with a general purpose feed and make sure it doesn't get too dry if you're somewhere (like here) its very dry indeed.

sounds like a plan bamboo lol x x