Relax, you cannot kill a trumpet vine. It is a hot weather grower and it is probably too early for it.

Now for the rant - this is an extremely invasive plant and my suggestion would be to remove it. Not only will it send out runners several feet from the source but it will pop up all over the neighborhood, farms, fence rows, etc. It is still young and you might stand a chance to eliminate it from your property if you act now. There are many gorgeous vines to replace this horrible vine.

A good replacement WOULD NOT be a honeysuckle vine - they are invasive too.

Depends on where it is. I had one for years and it never really suckered much. It never bloomed either (I guess it didn't get enough sun) so I took it out last fall. The main root was huge. If suckers did come up in the lawn I never noticed them. The spot was pretty dry.

I seem to remember it's pretty late to wake up.

My trumpet vine didn't bloom either until we fertilize, fertilize & more fertilizing and boy did it take off. So far we have had no problems that I've read about this vine... I love it.
{{gwi:208116}}

This vine ruined the shingle siding and windows on my mother's garage which is in zone 5. AND it never flowered, AND she is STILL trying to get rid of the darn thing.
She never noticed the damage it was doing, until it was TOO LATE.

I hope you'll follow Highjack's advice.
Visit the clematis forum. You'll see easy to grow vines that will knock your socks off! :-)
Patti

Avoid Trumpet Vine at all costs or you'll be sorry! I have a friend that has this in his seaside garden and it spreads vigorously by under ground runners. It can't be eradicated once it gets established! I hate to see people planting this as I've seen the havoc it causes. If you really want it how about planting in a large container to like a whiskey barrel to keep it in check?

I think the clematis suggestion is a good one. I have 3 clematis vine that are very well behaved growing up my back porch and they are lovely and require little work. Or many annual vines you can grow that are much less hassle.

I have been applying Roundup to this pest for years and am still trying to get it under control. Nice in hedgerows but nothing you's want in a civilized area.

I've been using a product called Vine-X against woody vines. I'm slowly beating back the trumpet vine, but only very slowly. BTW, Vine-X is a great product because of the east of application. It comes in a bottle with a brush on the end. All you have to do is upend and brush. It is a powerful poison, but you can really control application.

I had great success with Vine-X. I applied it to the lowest part of the stem twice within about 10 days, with a pretty heavy application. It actually seems to have worked so far. No suckers and no new growth.

Update on my use of vine-x on the trumpet vine. It made it send out suckers deep into the shrub border and I now have a nightmare on my hands. When I called the company, they admitted sheepishly that, yes, many people had bad results with using the product on trumpet vine. I'm trying now to dig back any suckers that appear to the original mass, and make no more attempts to get rid of the main vine and hope the whole thing settles down.

As a garden consultant, I advise people to never, never, never plant this vine.

I still spent part of last summer trying to get the suckers from popping up in a new shade bed several feet from the original pest. Every time a tiny sucker popped up I painted straight 41% Round Up on it. That sucker would be wilted within 24 hours but in a few weeks, I would find another runner pop up in a different direction. I will kill this evil vine! And to think my husband planted it voluntarily the first time.

Thanks for the warnings everyone. I had planted this in my barn bed to climb up the posts, but I think I will either move or remove it.

Question - how high does it grow? I have telephone poles on my property, to get the wires from the road up to the house. If I grow it on them, will they actually make it all the way to the top, about 30 feet? That area is a bit of a wilderness, so I wouldn't be worried about suckers or disturbing perennial beds. I don't want them to get to the top, I was hoping they might top out at 20 feet or so.

Thanks

I've seen them on telephone poles around here and I'd say their about 1/3 of the way up. I inherited 2 of these and had to take one out of the shinkles and roof off the back deck. I never water it and it always blooms and suckers. Now, the one on the fence gets water with the lilacs and it always blooms and never suckers. It also is in part shade.
Marcy

I am chomping at the bit to plant Trumpet Vine this Spring - it is a native Vine, beautiful, and very attractive to Hummingbirds.

BUT - I'm not planting it anywhere near my house or cultivated gardens. I will plant it in the back 1/2 acre of my lot, which is wild and uncultivated. It is also being taken over by many invasive non-natives - European Buckthorn, honeysuckle, and oriental bittersweet, to name a few.

I'm hoping that the Trumpet Vine, Virginia Creeper, and Common Milkweed that I plant back there will have a chance at competing with the invasives!! :p

So vine-x isn't good? Now what? Cement???? :( What was the lady thinking that planted trumpet vine in the backyard?
We did the roud up thing,black plastic,heavely mulch.And they actually creeped a good 4 inches through the darkness and pop up randemly.
I actually(2 years later) cut holes in the plastic to finally plant things,so we dont just have a mulched backyard.
Did I let the beast out? There NO other way to kill it?Should I attempt the vine-x atleast? (I'm in dallas,tx)

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to kill a trumpet vine. It's the vine from hell.

gottagarden, my trumpet vine started at 12" high in the spring and by fall had climbed the TV antenna tower to the top of my 2-story house! That was in very poor shale soil, full sun, and no fertilizer or watering. After that year I cut it back to 24" after frost, and unless I kept it trimmed all summer, it could do 30' easily, although the top growth wasn't as full. Whenever it topped 6' I cut back the top to keep it controlled.

General Observations:

These vines usually don't bloom until they are about 5 years old. I had a few blooms after 4 years, and after 5 years it bloomed profusely for 2 summers, but like others above have mentioned, it started tunneling under my house siding. The trunk was 4" in diameter, so we sawed it off just above ground level.

My experience getting rid of it. I had originally planted it 2 other locations, but moved it when I realized it was outgrowing the space. The first move was to a "holding" bed, then to the TV tower. I had suckers growing in both original locations after I removed the vine, so I used RoundUp on them. All that seemed to do was encourage many new suckers to pop up nearby. Finally I resorted to just pulling or breaking them off, and after 2 years they finally gave up. I haven't had any suckers sprouting for the past several years.

On the 4" stump, I wrapped it in black plastic and duct-taped it tight. Then I covered the plastic in mulch. Occasionally I'll see a sucker pop up, which I immediately break off. I think if you can keep it from growing leaves for energy the roots will eventually die. That's been my experience with it, but I'm not offering a guarantee! ;)

So today,I did just that...wrapped the massive stump w/ new growth on it,in a black bag and tape,and mulched.Plus went on a sucker hunt,and for the first time noticed how much was in my backyard.
Ok,here is what I dont get.I have a big backyard.There is a pool in the middle,surounded by concrete.How does it spread from one side of the house,all the way in the neighbors lawn and front of the house?Is it through the ground? Or is it airbound some how?
Well,regardless,I'm gonna beat this thing!If I win by pulling suckers over and over,I'll write back to give the next poor soul like me alittle hope...if I win...which I doubt...but I'll try.

Well, there are seed pods, so maybe the seeds are blowing into your yard or friendly little critters are planting them for you. ;)

My (probably nutty) theory is the weedkillers cause more suckers because the plant goes into crisis mode and hurriedly tries to save itself by propagating as many new replicas as it can. That might be totally ridiculous scientifically, but I noticed a definite reduction in suckers when I stopped using the RoundUp and started pulling suckers by hand.

So, does anyone know if Trumpet Vine's can be controlled if planted in a large deck pot? If so, how do you control it? Just cut it back when it reaches the desired height? I have seen pictures of Trumpets that were potted that look like minature trees. When the vine flowers and seed pods form, will the seeds travel to unwanted places like the yard or worse a neighbor's yard?