It's a good idea to consider this carefully, before you plant. I have had a busy summer digging up invasives because I have the habit of planting anything in sight. The Trumpet Vine is VERY invasive, sending runners under the ground,strangling other plants, and coming up everywhere. There's so many other vines that behave themselves, and are pretty also. This vine IS very pretty, but I've found that it's just not worth sacraficing my garden. :) arum

I live out in the country and was hoping to pant this off on my tree line so that it will fill it in some. I had heard that they kind of take over that is why i was thinking of planting it where it can take over.

Do you know if they can be started just by planting the pod in the ground.

Be careful if there are trees in your treeline, it will strangle them out.

I grow it in zone 6 and find it to be invasive. The soil here where it grows is clay just under the topsoil. Knowing how it sends runners everywhere, I planted it where I could mow for many feet around. The shoots come up in the lawn 20ft away. I also have it growing up a Black Walnut with some success. It doesn't seem to strangle a tree like Kudzu, it grows more like Poison Ivy. But, I do want to emphasize, it puts up hundreds of shoots in a circle 20ft around the tree. Another clump scrambles over a large prone almost-rotted Cherry. This one also would take over if not for yearly severe prunings and constant cutting of the sprouts. Be careful what you wish for.

are you willing to have it spread 30 feet a year? every year?

are you willing to deal with the agonized screams of the folks on the OTHER side of that tree line, when it comes creeping in to carry off their family pets?

and yes- it is that invasive. seriously. it's best grown in a 3-gallon bucket, set into a 5-gallon bucket dug in to the ground, the space between filled with gravel for drainage.

never grown it from pods, it roots at every node where it touches the ground- but it germinates easily :)

One word of advice DON'T.

What can be done with the seed pods?

I have had an orange trumpet vine growing on my fence in the back yard for 10 years and it has never sent up a single runner. I love it. It is one of my favorite plants. It is strange how a plant can act so differently for different people.

I have to agree with everyone else. It's a horrible plant. You can't contain it. My neighbor planted one on one side of my property. And it came up on the other side of my house right next to the foundation and began climbing my house. I can't dig deep enough to get it out and RoundUp hasn't touched it. I now have it popping up everywhere even after we bought the neighbor's property and destroyed the original plant.

It would be pretty if you could have just one, but I betcha can't have just one. You'll have one after another one--all over your property. The real problem is the stuff roots down about 6 ft and spreads runners deep underground. You can never dig deep enough to get it all out.

NancyAnn

As for what to do with the pods, I made some really cute Christmas tree ornaments with them. I painted them to look like Santa Claus, with his face in the middle and his red hat with fur trim coming to a point above, and his white beard coming to a point below. There is also sometimes a sort of "cap" on the stem end (remains of the sepals, perhaps) that I painted white for the ball on the cap. I had to glue mine together with white craft glue, because they had opened as they dried. I removed all the seeds, so bugs wouldn't get in them. I have also heard of them being used on wreaths and in dried arrangements. They are really quite attractive. Good luck.

I agree it's a horribly invasive plant but it's also beautiful. If you have the room and aren't worried about the potential of it taking over then plant it. It takes a number of years until it reaches blooming size. You don't want to plant the whole pod. When you open it you'll find hundreds, maybe thousands of flat golden brown seeds. I cold stratify them for 8-12 weeks or just winter sow them.
Karyn

Within 4 years of spotting the original plant, I was fighting runners that had travelled 60+ feet. I know it was the same plant, because in trying to dig up the new ones, I was pulling up the runner all the way along the distance. Runners went out that far in all directions. Oh, and those were only the farthest outliers.... Literally hundreds of starts were coming up close and far, everywhere. The runners branched frequently, and crossed each other, and covered my world. Completely destroying the original plant [I don't want to get started on the difficulties there.] did no good. The runners were self-standing, and putting out more runners.

On the parking lot side, the adorable little root sprouts *regularly* pushed their way through undamaged asphalt, many feet into the parking lot area. First a little raised dimple. Then larger. Then a crack. Then another trumpet vine.

It laughs at Round-Up. Brush-Be-Gone will kill the one treated runner back, but not just by spraying.... You have to wangle continued application to the cut vine end. But then the rest of the underground system just puts out more runners.

I know that some people have had reasonable luck with this plant, but I wouldn't take the risk if I were you. Here, this stuff thrives in good loam and in lousy clay subsoil and in beach-sand construction fill, in sun and deep shade, dry areas, damp areas, neutral and alkaline.

Unless you are *absolutely sure* that this vine is an easily managed pussy-cat in your area, don't go there.

It is a beautiful vine, and some varieties are native to the states. But keep this in mind, if you plant it and it spreads far enough to damage a neighbors property you may be liable for the damage.
If I were your neighbor you might make an enemy. I'd first ask you to remove it before it takes hold. If no luck on my part I would definitely try legal methods to have you remove it. It will spread hundreds of feet, no kidding, and destroy not only plant material but shingles, pipes, downspouts, pavenment both blacktop and concrete all in time. I will never ever plant this gorgeous vine again! I have neighbors who hate me for planting it over 30 years ago in NYC!!!

I don't know if anyone is still reading this, but it is funny how some people find it such a wonderful choice of vine and others are terrified of it. I fall under the category of terrified. We bought this house two years ago and for the first two springs, I was opposed to my husband getting rid of it...he was tired of having to mow the trumpet vines and not the grass. They were shooting up everywhere. This spring, I started to see the trumpet vines coming up everywhere in my gardens and I am afraid of it trying to strangle these flowers. We have just planted a maple, harry lauder's walking stick and a peabush and I am terrified of it killing them. When we dug around these trees to make a garden, we saw for the first time the mess of roots the trumpet vines have. They were as thick as my thumb and running towards the house...we have a small yard. Anyway, I love the flower, I love the hummingbirds BUT this vine should only be planted in an area where there is a lot of land and well away from structures including trees. It is unfortunate that we are stuck now trying to get rid of it. We are worried that our neighbours will get infested wtih it soon and even though they know we didn't plant it, they will not like to have to fight this battle. Anyway, please be careful when planting it...not everyone has good luck with it.

I'm new to the forum and posting long after the last post...hope someone knows how they do in containers?

I've only seen them grown in pots successfully in two places. One in Paris on a roof top garden, the other at a nursery on Long Island in NY. The pot in paris was about 5 gallon and blooming, the one in NY was huge, maybe 2-3 yards of soil, it was about 10 feet up a trellis and blooming but the bottom of the pot was raised on cinderblocks so the runners could be cut and prevented from getting into the ground.

My gosh, who knew people didn't like trumpet vines? We've had a mild-mannered light-violet trumpet vine growing on our east-west fence for years with zero problems -- I was searching today to find out what was up with the weird looking pod that the vine is setting. Our vine had actually been growing in between the two sides of our fence, so I bought some trellises and put those up on the fence and then tied the vine to it. It looks great and I love it when it flowers. I had an arch fabricated to go over our gate so the vine can grow on it, too. No problems to report!

I will keep an eye on the seed pod and try to harvest some of the seeds.

xwagner if your vine has light violet flowers it's a very different vine than the trumpet vine being discussed here. Trumpet vine is a common name for many different vines, here we're writing about campsis radicans or campsis flava, extremely invasive yet extremely beautiful when in flower vines!

How can you tell the difference. I have a cousin with a red flowered vine she calls a trumpet vine. She hasn't complained of any problems. It grows next to her house.
I have been given a pod from someone who says it is from an orange trumpet vine. How will I know. I wanted to give it to my sister for her birthday; but now you all have me terrified. Thanks

I have a trumpet vine and searched because I have never seen pods before. This year my trumpet vine started sending out shoots. Now you really have me worried. We had an exceptional summer, wet June, hot, hot July. I was so excited it was actually growing and showing a few flowers. This is a Monrovia plant called Balboa Sunset. It is campsis radicans 'Monbal". This is probably the 3rd or 4th year. Am I going to be in trouble? I planned to put an arbor into my veggie garden. I am supposed to be in zone 5, but I only count on 4.

I planted my Orange Trumpet vine along with American Wisteria to grow up my pergola poles. Both have bloomed this year and are nearly covering Pergola which is 12ft x 12ft. It's beautiful and have no problems with it growing any other place but where I planted it!! I have many pods if anyone would like to trade for a different color?