It should be fine back there. It is a lovely vine, but I made a mistake several years ago. I transplanted it to the back fence of the garden in the sun and it got huge, partly because the compost pile is in that area. I have cut it to the ground every year for 5 years and it always comes back. I wish I had planted passion vine there instead. How did the Solomon Seal plants make the transition?

It should be fine back there. It is a lovely vine, but I made a mistake several years ago. I transplanted it to the back fence of the garden in the sun and it got huge, partly because the compost pile is in that area. I have cut it to the ground every year for 5 years and it always comes back. I wish I had planted passion vine there instead. How did the Solomon Seal plants make the transition?

Great, it said unable to load, try again, so I did and now you get to see it twice.

I treat trumpet vine with roundup and 2 4 D. It is a beautiful vine along the creek or out in the woods, but I don't want it anywhere in the yard or along the fence.

If you have neighbors, I vote no. Yes it is pretty but it spreads like wild fire around here.

I think it just depends on how much space you have, how close the neighbors are and how much you like it.

We have three different kinds of trumpet creeper---the standard orange-flowered improved variety 'Madam Galens', which is not quite as invasive as the native one that grows wild everywhere; the yellow-flowered variety that I think was called 'Flava' when I bought it 15 or 16 years ago, and another named one that has orange flowers with a hint of red called 'Balboa Park'. All of them were planted where they would have plenty of room to grow, and they attract big hordes of hummingbirds, which is why I planted them to begin with. Mine do not get any water other than rainfall and that probably helps keep them from turning into huge unruly monsters since it means they often go a month or two in the summer with no rain whatsoever. I wouldn't want them too close to a building I valued highly or to a neighbor's property because they do have a tendency to roam and ramble not only above-ground but below-ground as well. None of mine are near the property line because I didn't want to inflict them upon the neighbors.

If you dug up and transplanted a wild one, that could be a mistake. The named varieties roam less than the wild ones and I don't think I'd want a wild one running everywhere unless I had a ton of space and neighbors who wouldn't care if it popped up all over their yard.

We're on acreage in the country, so I can plant rambling, roaming things far away from the house and let them do their thing and they have room to ramble and roam without causing too much trouble. I wouldn't plant some of those same plants if I lived in town on a standard-sized lot, and I certainly wouldn't plant them in a place where they'd get watered a lot or would get fertilized because I wouldn't want the to have too much encouragement. Down here the wild trumpet creepers run along fencelines, climb electric poles and creep and crawl out along the electric lines and telephone lines, so keep that sort of behavior in mind when deciding where to plant one. You sometimes can drive by old deserted homesteads with little old country houses that have been vacant for decades that are rotting and falling down, and often they are buried underneath a ton of the native trumpet creeper vines that have survived for decades with no care whatsoever.

Plant it only if you want to eventually end up leaving a wooded area permanently covered in TV growing into the top of the trees for future generations to enjoy.

The only one I've ever seen that appears contained is growing up a tall pole in the middle of a large parking lot by the Boulevard Cafeteria downtown in OKC. The only reason its not taller is it ran out of pole to climb up. This one actually blooms heavily, some don't. I am betting money this TV can escape and come up in cracks or grow roots to the edge of the parking lot to invade the surrounding area.

The seeds are carried off to the next county.

Caution. Never cut a mature TV down. It will send up suckers EVERYWHERE for long distances.

TV cannot be killed.

Never plant a TV close to your home or any structure you wish to keep, it will attack you and pull you out of your bed eventually, it loves to get into and under storm windows. It will traverse under concrete. If you try to pull a TV off your house it will rip off the siding and shingles. Its goal is world domination.

If you have neighbors, one day they will hate you.

I vote no but I'm probably just jaded living here in an old neighborhood where TV was planted everywhere, or, maybe its just a single plant? I wonder. Seriously, you really do get to see how things like trees and vines develop for the good or bad living in an old neighborhood, there are lessons in hindsight everywhere around here. People buying houses in new additions would be well advised to take a drive through some of these older neighborhoods.

After that description who need to watch "The Walking Dead". Lol Just step outside and watch the Trumpet vine, just kidding. I think the general rule is if it can run wild it will, just be very cautious.

Well, its probably obvious but I'm not a Trumpet Vine fan. Around here its called by its rightful name, Evil TV. There are TV's eating both neighbors houses. I fight it continuously, which is a big laff because there really is no fighting or killing it.

The absolute creepiest thing I've ever seen in my entire (perhaps sheltered?) life was miles and miles of trees completely swallowed by kudzu in Mississippi. I think about that whenever I see other creeping vines of any sort and I just. say. no.

I've seen it. Creepy is a good word for it but then I think vines covering trees is always creepy looking but that mess down south has to be seen to be believed.

I say NO NO NO

there are several trumpet vines in my neighborhood. I'm especially enamoured of a yellow one...but every time I look at it, I remember all the trumpet vine horror stories! I've resisted so far :)

first, mulberry, the Solomon's seal is doing great.

well, I threw the trumpet vine out. someone on another forum called it the 'fatal attraction.' and it was very tempting. I hope it doesn't come back up in my garden. it has come up every year and I just cut it down not knowing what it was. this time I left it alone and the next time I looked it was a yard long, so I dug it up, found out it was trumpet vine and wanted to keep it so bad. (oh, dear, some of this I have said in my opening statement.)

I saw it recently on an old house that is for sale and loved it so much. of course the house is falling down, but my friend was out house hunting.

I have a friend who put silver lace vine on her house and now thinks she should move it because it is crawling in the window and between the boards of the house. I got a cutting of it but planted it out near the road where it can't harm anyone. saw a tiny vine today with what looked like baby orange trumpets, a delicate vine and wondered what it was and wanted it too. but that again was during my friends house hunting.

okiedawn, it is nice that you have a large place to grow vines.

I hate that kudzi in Mississippi and hope we never get it here. it is pretty at first but then everything looks the same, like someone draped green blankets over everything.

thanks everyone.

When asked how tall a trumpet creeper plant would grow, a well-known horticulturalist in Texas replied "four feet taller than anything else around it". That made me laugh at the time, and it still makes me laugh now, but I planted TV anyhow. I love it and cannot imagine our property without it, but I chose its planting sites very carefully and none of the plants has attempted to take over the surrounding acreage. The TV plant that hides the tornado shelter is the one most likely to eventually try to take over the world. I do have to keep it trimmed back from the door in spring and early summer in case we need to run to the tornado shelter, but other than that, it is completely low maintenance and I'd rather look at a big green plant covered in orange flowers than to look at a concrete tornado shelter. When it tries to outgrow its area and venture into the yard or pathway, it promptly gets mowed back when we mow the lawn and that's the end of that.

TV is one of the few plants I grow that survived the summer of 2011 in dense red clay, although I think I watered it once a month to ensure it survived for the sake of the hummingbirds. The 'Balboa Park' one I planted in the new garden out back a few years ago grows sedately on the garden fence and hasn't spread out much at all or sent out underground runners that have popped up anywhere else. It is the most sedate TV I've sever seen, and I've been disappointed that it mostly has stayed where I planted it. I was hoping it would run wild and cover a large portion of the fence and, so far, it has not. It did not grow explosively in the dry years or the wet years so maybe it never will get much bigger than it is now.

I understand why a person wouldn't want it on a standard city lot, but I have 14.4 acres to play with, so I grow a lot of plants that potentially could become invasive, and pretty much none of them have. I suspect the drought years mostly reign them in but the red clay does too. Not much is invasive in very dense red clay, and most of what is invasive in dense, red clay isn't something I'd ever plant on purpose. American Crossvine is another favorite of mine, and the hummingbirds love it as much as they love the flowers of the trumpet creeper. It doesn't grow as large or spread as aggressively as trumpet creeper does. My crossvine died last year, likely as a result of 4 years of drought. I'll probably plant a replacement crossvine next year, but maybe closer to the house so it can be watered occasionally. It has proven to not be nearly as drought-tolerant as the TV.

For the record, I do think trumpet vine is very beautiful, especially out on an acreage. If I ever manage to kill mine off (on my little city lot!) I'll go visit some in the country sometime! ;)

Kate, LOL. That is too funny. You can visit it in our area simply by driving down any country road. It certainly isn't hard to find some of it out there in the wild. I think it is one reason we have so many hummingbirds around all the time.

Dawn

if I ever see trumpet vine again I will dig it up and plant it under a big red cedar tree on the acreage next door that belongs to the hwy. dept and is a water shed. maybe that is how Oklahoma can kill all these cedar trees. I cut down all the ones I could on that land. just that one left. they like how we are caring for their property and saw our veggie garden, fruit trees and berry bushes. like someone said on this forum, they don't grow fruit trees because the critters get them. well, our new peach or nectarine tree had fruit and black rot got it. we will have to spray so at least the squirrels can get them. by the way does crossvine take over like tv? and can't you just see a cedar tree covered in tv? how pretty

Let me know if it works on killing cedars. My motto is "Death to Cedars!"

haha. first I have to find another vine. then the killing begins.

I like your idea, Jess, to let the trumpet creepers climb all over the cedars, if you can get the vine to grow near a cedar. I think that Eastern red cedars may have some allelopathic traits that prevent other plants from getting established near them/growing on or underneath them. For all the fields I see here that have been taken over completely by cedars, I've never seen a trumpet creeper growing near or on any of them.

American crossvine is a vigorous grower when it is in conditions it likes, but it is not as rampant of a grower as TV is, and I've grown it for over 30 years, both at this house and at our previous home in Fort Worth, where I grew it on the fence around the swimming pool and it stayed nicely in place and did not attempt to take over adjacent flower beds.

The great hummingbird migration is on and all my TVs are surrounded by hummingbirds coming and going all day long from just after sunrise to a little after sunset. I grow these vines specifically for them, so I'm happy to see the hummers getting such good use from the flowers.

I had a hummingbird at basil flowers on the patio. I have lots of other things flowering, I ws surprised to see it in the tiny basil flowers.

my friend may give me more of her silver lace vine. the honeysuckle I got from the store doesn't seem to be doing well. it was root bound and I could not dig a big hole for it, so I am just watering it as much as I can. and now I am trying to dig out honeysuckle next door and replanting it.

someone on dave's garden had just said that a tv took over a cedar tree and killed it. I wonder if it was planted far from the cedar and creeped to it? I can see myself planting it out there and carrying a long vine to the tree and attaching it. ha. I may have said that ok. dept. is trying to kill these trees, but they are so far behind. http://kfor.com/2014/05/06/cedar-tree-removal-program-cutting-down-wildfire-fuel-free-for-residents/ If you want to schedule a visit from the Eastern Red Cedar eradication crew, call County Commissioner Maughan's office at (405) 713-1502. I would like to put this city on the list. ha.

Amy, I have seen lots of bees and butterflies at basil flowers, so I guess I wouldn't be too surprised to see hummingbirds there too. As they migrate, they do desperately search out every possible nectar source they can find. It takes a lot of "good eats" to fuel their long journey south.

I can always tell when the hummingbirds are migrating because all of a sudden our hummingbird feeders become insanely busy. While our resident hummingbirds tend to spend a lot of time in the garden visiting all the flowers there and often don't even visit the nectar feeders at all, the migrants tend to zoom right in on the feeders and then hang around them for hours (or even days) as they rest and fuel up for the next portion of their journey. They eat as if they are starving and cannot eat enough.

Last night we had the most visitors at our front porch hummingbird feeders that I've ever seen. There were maybe 20 or 25 hummingbirds fighting over two feeders. Each feeder had a hummingbird at every feeding port, several hovering around and trying to force their way in and more zooming back and forth between the two feeders trying to force their way in. It was crazy and we watched through a window in amazement. It was near twilight and they were eating fairly greedily. I am not sure if this was a bunch of new migrating hummingbirds that had just found our house and the feeders or if they are the ones that have been around the last 3 or 4 days all trying to get their final meal of the night or what. Usually it is a busy evening if there's 3 or 4 at each feeder and last night's numbers far surpassed that. I think I have another couple of feeders in the garage that we haven't been using because our resident hummers just don't visit the feeders when I have lots of flowers in bloom. I'm going to search for those other feeders this morning and if I find them, I'll make more nectar and fill them and hang them. Because of the flash drought we have almost no flowers blooming in our pastures now, so I think it is possible these hummers have been having a bit of a hard time finding enough flowers in bloom as they journey through southern OK.

Jessaka, We cut cedars whenever we have time, though only in winter since the only cedar trees left on our property are in the woods. We used to have tons of them in our pastures but worked away steadily at taking them out. We'll never get rid of the really big ones at the back of our property as they are 40-60' tall and so dense you cannot cut one because it wouldn't fall over---the surrounding trees would hold it up. Still, we're determined to keep the rest of our property from being overrun by cedars. We have vines (grapevines, Carolina snailseed, peppervine and others) climbing all over many of our hardwoods, but almost never see a vine climbing a cedar. I'm not sure why. After we cut some of the cedars in our fields, the bare soil that used to sit beneath the cedar stayed barren for a couple of years as if the soil was somehow poisoned and nothing would grow there. Eventually and very slowly the pasture grasses did creep back into the soil but it took years for it to happen. So many fields here have become wall to wall cedar trees growing so thickly together you cannot walk through the field or drive a tractor through it. It is a sad sight to see.

Dawn