I grow our wild trumpet vine in a 36" pot ABOVE ground, because I believe, due to the drainage holes in your pot, the runners would grow thru and take off 'running'.

How big does yours get? I was wondering if being pot-bound might cause it to stay relatively small.

Cosmo, it WILL come out the bottom. I've been tolerating the vine in mine yard for nearly 15 years. It will travel underground 50-100 yards and then come up take over there. It will strangle trees. I cut and spray with round-up all through the growing season. I did let it cover some chain link fence to shade my hosta beds.- Be careful.

Cosmo, it will get as big as I let it, but I keep it trimmed. I cut it back to about a foot just after it blooms, then cut it thru the summer. When fall arrives, I don't cut on it any more, let it go dormant, then it does it's thing in the spring. I keep a diligent eye on the drain holes to make sure none escape.

Kay and Bonnie are absolutely correct. Don't let this lovely plant *near* ground soil. In a pot, in contact with soil, that has anything like drainage holes, even a fine mesh, it *will* escape. And it doesn't take long at all for a smallish amount of spreading root to be able to be self-sustaining, putting up a new sprout.

Even in a pot with absolutely no hole or weakness buried in soil, I strongly suspect that this would be a bad idea. Here's why. We are unfortunate enough to have this volunteer in soil. [We were thrilled.... then.] 10-15 ft away from the main plant, through undamaged virgin asphalt, we saw blisters, then mounds, that eventually broke through and.... there was a nice little root sprout of trumpet vine. There were many of these amazing breakthroughs.... each spring!

15 ft in the other direction, we had an herb knot made with an edge of textured concrete blocks, planted with chives. Two of the blocks on different sides of the garden began to shift upward oddly. No, the trumpet vine didn't grow *through* the concrete blocks, but their 'tender new sprouts' did shift those blocks. One then grew up through the hole in the block, and the other around the side of the block.

Between the area where the trumpet creeper was and our woodland garden bed was about 25 ft of regularly mowed lawn.I saw several apparent trumpet creepers in the woodland bed! Thought that they had been seeded in, but I had been in "take no chances" mode for several years. With tools and gallons of sweat, I followed the rootstock of the cute little young-looking starts.... across the mowed area, and back to the original plant. Also, luckily, found a number of other rootstocks heading in other directions that I had not caught them at yet.

I'm not sure that there is a pot material that can be guaranteed to withstand this thing .

Linda

hi, this may sound silly but can the vine be controlled if it is kept in a large pot? i live in ohio and i bought a samlon reddish trumpet vine.. what do you suggest? i live in town so i thought a large pot with a heavy duty trellis would work

My advise from seeing this plant all my life is DO NOT PLANT IT. Beautiful and hummingbirds love it but DO NOT PLANT IT. There are other vines that you can control. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

Trumpet vine grows wild in my area.

:) yup- the safest place for it is in a pot, on a patio- god knows they don't mind the reflected heat one bit :)

I've had to resort to roundup-ing what I can't pull up (it's intertwined with the roots of a 40 year old yew, nothing short of explosives will shake it loose) but it's down to one bed- which is full of invasives anyway (spiderwort, lemon balm, lily of the valley, and standing phlox!)

thankfully, it's out of my bloody back yard (no new shoots this year :)!!!!!!

but it's as well behaved as the jasmine when confined to a 3-gallon pot (my version of making a bonsai) on a patio where even if it sends runners out over the top... they will cook before they root :)

I planted one in ground last year and it is really running through our trellis but NO BLOOMS.... Do I need to dig it up NOW???? PLS help, I am a new gardener and love Hummingbirds and that is why I bought it!!!

yes, houselover... I would dig it up, be amazed at how far the root system has developped...and put it in a bucket...and then spend the next year with a bottle of Roundup, hitting ever shoot that pops up in the lawn (you can't get all of the root. I never have, and I actually tried one time)

they can be quite tame in pots.

they can take several years to flower, and I have noticed that they don't like to be pruned before flowereing, but are fine with being whacked back to 2 feet tall in september.

What an excellent thread. I had winter sown some seed this past winter, and have kept it in what I believe is a 2 gallon pot, on my deck. I really don't have the heart to toss it, and I don't know where I'll put it to climb, but it does look like it's itching to climb. I now know that I shouldn't (and won't) put it in the ground, but I still have alot to think about...

I had a trumpet vine growing next to the house up a trellis. It had 3 main vines that were about 2 inches in diameter. I cut those trunks down and am trying to kill it with Bayer Advanced Brush Killer (triclopyr 8.8%) by drilling holes into the trunk stump. I believe its root system has gone under the foundation of my house and is sucking up all the water and is causing the walls to crack from change in soil elevation. My question is, do I have to try and kill the whole root system? 15 feet away from the parent trunk is a fence covered with the trumpet vine. I'd like to leave those there, but I'm afraid if it is part of the whole root system, it will continue to pull water from the soil under the foundation of the house. Does anyone have any suggestions?

What mimidi said.