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Cottage Gardens

What to do with Trumpet Creeper?

doggonegardener

15 years ago

Hey Folks,

I planted two trumpet creeper vines this spring and they did nicely through the summer. Pretty blooms that are still going strong.

My question is...

I am in Wyoming and I wonder what to do with this for the winter. Do I cut it off or leave it like my honeysuckle? Can anyone help me out. I have lost the tag. We have cold, dry (non humid), windy winters with some relatively good amounts of snow. It's on the southeast corner of my home so it's somewhat protected.

Thanks in advance.

Rene

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Comments (3)

lvtgrdn
15 years ago
LOL, I thought you were asking what to do with the Trumpet Creeper that is popping up in places you didn't want it, not that I'd be able to help you with that.

We live in the house my dh grew up in. Before we decided if we were going to buy the house, dh and one of his brothers killed the trumpet creeper their mom or dad had planted. I was so mad, because I've had it before, in a bigger yard, though, and loved it. DH says we don't have room for it, and maybe he is right.

I hope someone who knows can tell you how to overwinter your vine. When we had ours, l hadn't planted it, and didn't know how to care for it, but I just left it, and it regrew on the old wood. Looking back, I probably should have cut it back some in the fall or spring.

Sue
lorna-organic
15 years ago
Most plants benefit from being left intact throughout winter. Cutting a plant back makes it more susceptible to cold temperatures, which might cause the plant to die.

Lorna
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Hi, Rudy Don't mean to be rude at all, Rude Rudy, but I am in MI, and I have spent the last few years [and a hard sweaty batch of hours just this afternoon, yet again] trying to find some way of **killing** this thing, or even significantly discouraging it. I have put a lot of sweat and blisters into the project over several years, and I am making progress, but still feel like I am losing. I suspect that this may not be same variety, and that certainly the growing conditions where you are are not the same as where I am. But for those in my upper midwest region, I would like to discourage takers on your kind offer, or any plant that is labelled as 'Trumpet Vine/Creeper'. At least make sure you have a calmer cultivated variety, and check with others in your area about that cultivar. Apparently, the native type **really likes it** in our particular environment here. Trumpet Vine/Creeper = a bad planting idea! ........... unless you are in a hurry to cover the barn falling apart in the backlot, and there are no plantings for about a hundred feet in front of it that you care about, and that everything around that is to be mowed on a regular basis........ Rudy said: I suppose that breaking them off like that will not kill them. And I say: At least for the native form in the upper midwest, beware of leaving four inch long root segments that are anything close to a quarter-inch thick. It all begins again.......... Re broken roots and viability... I suspect there will be no problem. They should do just fine >>>> Sorry, Rudy. I am a bit frustrated... Linda
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Dieter - only non-native wisteria. Native wisteria is much smaller and better behaved and will not damage the structure it is trained over (the non-native wisteria planted here when we bought this house DID pull the porch down - and still refuses to stay dead, six years after we chopped it down! Argh.)
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Bluebars, was your trumpet vine for sure dead after all of that. My husband and I have one we are about to tackle this summer. I am sad that I have to kill it because it is beautiful but it is getting worse and worse. We have much too small of a yard to have such a beast, let alone three of them. Your idea is exactly what we felt we were going to try but I would love to hear that you won. What a depressing thing, Karyn, to try and try and never win. Why is that? My biggest worry is that we are going to take them off the fence, dig out the roots of the three main parents, paint the other sprouts and then nothing will stop it and we have lost what was good about them...the flowers. What do you guys think?
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Neil, did you ever get an answer to your question? It won't flower as well in the pot if at all. The real danger is it may escape out the bottom of the pot and through the space in the pavers and show up 20 or 30 feet away before you realize it!!! I've got 2 at my new home that were planted last year(2009) I uprooted what I could spring of 2010, and by the fall they were coming back up as if they were never removed. Had I known they were there I may seriously have considered not buying this home. I was willing to put up with trying to erradicate poison ivy before dealing with campsis radicans again!
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solana
15 years ago
Trumpet creeper as in 'Campsis radicans'?

Like Sue, I thought you were going to be asking how to control it! I inherited one planted by the previous owner on the side of the barn and, left to its own devices for a year, it gets under the siding and shingles, pops up in the the smallest crack in pavement 30 feet away.

That said, it is pretty, and a hummingbird magnet. The best use I've seen is a friend who grows it as a standard in the middle of her lawn where the runners can be mown down. With a sturdy stake for support, you can braid the stems into a trunk. Once the framework is established, cut it back to the bones in early spring: it blooms on new growth.

We're a tad warmer and moister here in winter than Wyoming, but I wouldn't worry. I'd encourage you to leave it be for the winter, but think seriously about a new place for it next year. I'm not fond of herbicides, had to resort to Round-Up on active Spring growth. That worked after a couple diligent doses. You get the picture?

Ana

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