I'm not sure why you want to get rid of it, if it looked so good. In zone 7 I would expect you could have some die back which could be pruned off later. Mulching over the roots would be beneficial. It sounds like the tubers could well be your creeper and will quite likely grow back.

Hmmmm, what we have here is a failure to communicate! I was digging them up to bring them inside for the winter. They are most definitely not hardy in Zone 7, no matter how heavily mulched.

What I was really curious about~and I probably should have posted this on the Botany forum~was how many of these tubers are formed in a season. And what causes them to get brown and hard, like the ones I saw in San Antonio, versus the radish-like ones I dug up.

Ginny

LOL! I did misunderstand didn't I? You sound pretty certain about the hardiness, I was only quoting what I had read...sorry. Could the difference in appearence of the tubers be an age related thing perhaps? I can't seem to find any information on that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Antigonon leptopus

Thanks for that link. I was going to reply directly to you, but GW has changed its member pages and there are no links for emailing each other. Darn! Another feature that I found really helpful has bitten the dust!

Anyway, I was surprised to see that it said it was hardy in Zone 7. I lost two plants by leaving them outside, but maybe I didn't have them mulched heavily enough. Since I'm so crazy about it, I dug up every bit of it that I could find this year, but I was surprised that there were so many tubers. It seems strange to me that whenever I've read about its propogation, it doesn't say you can plant the tubers and have them grow. (Although your link did mention storing the tubers over the winter.) So maybe the tubers just store food? By the way, that is a gorgeous picture with the link. Thanks again.
Ginny

as far as i have come to find from trial and error the tubers are to help them get over the winter die back/a food type supply.i live in florida and i have only seen one other yard with them but they seem to love it down here.they are really beautiful and every year die back a little but never to the ground and every year about 70 new vines come up (during and after flowering usally 2 rounds a year for new vines) usally i let them thin themselfs out but this year i seperated as many as i could stand to pot up to about half died from underwatering.....oops but they seem to do excelllent if kept up with watering young new vines.its hard to be 22 and juggle a garden and a life lol. If anyone is interested in some vines or seeds and around the clearwater Fl. area E-mail me maby we will trade or if you want seeds maby we can do the mail thing...damavista@aol or my page