Help!! Trumpet Vine taking over the world!

[petal*pusher]

Argh! I have been pretty good at keeping this thing contained for 8 years....but what a horrific problem it has become!

It's sprouting right up thru my deck...clutching the siding and reaching for the roof...and appearing throughout my gardens and yard. Such a sneaky little devil it is!!

It is growing over a pergolla at the end of the deck...a wooden swing hangs below. It really looked nice for several years. This year it is G-I-G-A-N-T-I-C!!! I hate to cut the whole thing down (is that even possible)...but does anyone have a suggestion??

Help!.....p

[Ed_B]

Hi Petal

Love it or kill it, It is very aggrerssive in sending up rooted shoots over a wide area.

It will attach itself to a building, and it will leave marks when it is removed.

The best place for this plant is in an open area up a trellis or 4x4 where you can mow all around it, by my experience anyway.

I like it, but it needs to be controlled or it can do damage and you saw what it does to the flower beds.

Ed

[Chris_W]

In the past when I did landscape maintenance I would cut back the really problematic, far away shoots then poor a little concentrated roundup on the cuts. It would kill that section but not affect the main plant. Now, I just used roundup, not brush-b-gon or roundup brush killer, because either of those might kill a lot more than you intend.

Good luck!

[tsneal]

Boy I'm in the same boat! Been trying to kill the thing since 2004 ...arg! It is everywhere in one of my beds. I dug the entire bed up last year...I mean like three feet down..guess what it came back (with no planted trumpet vine in site). I think I might have had a little bit still hidden in the astibille plant I had removed and put back in. When I get time, I'll have to remove it and divide it up...looking for the rascally vine! Until them, I have some brush killer in a bottle and am spraying the sprouts as they come up (regular round up didn't seem to phase it much).

Good luck!!
Stephanie

[renaldo75]

I just posted this on Ed's post over on Perennials:
[I hadn't gotten this far yet.]

I've heard that the newer cultivars of trumpet vine aren't as aggressive, but I still would be careful with them. What I have is the old fashioned kind & it knows no boundaries. I finally gave up trying to do it in out in front of the house years ago. I'd given it my best shot the year before & it just came back in different places. I finally built an arbor type thing over the raised water garden for it to have something to grow on. Eventually it moved the rebar so that both of the north sides look like they have tilted. The last couple years I wasn't vigilant where it went under the concrete sidewalk & it was all along the house trying to get in - higher than the roof in several places. I cut & dug it all back - as much as I could last month. Planted some ventricosas where it was the worst next to the house. They're tough. But I know the trumpet vine will be back. It always is. And it self-seeds too........ At least once in a while I see a hummingbird enjoying the nectar of the blooms.

I don't think you can kill it ever unless you use a backhoe & adhere strictly to a scorched earth policy. And I'm not sure even that would do the trick.

[petal*pusher]

At least the "Trumpet Vine versus Man....er, Woman" doesn't seem to be mine alone! It is such a pretty thing....but what hides behind those nice blossoms is quite a monster!

Thanks for the replies....and sympathy! I KNOW I have to do something about it this year ......p