Skip to main content

Trumpet Vine

The Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans) is also known as Trumpet Creeper, Hellvine, Devils Shoestring, or Hummingbird Vine.  It is also sometimes called Cow Itch Vine because the leaves can cause a rash in some animal like cows. Trumpet Vine is native to the eastern United States.
Trumpet Vine is a very vigorous woody vine grown for its colorful trumpet-shaped flowers.
Trumpet Vines are available with Red Flowers,

 
Orange Flowers,
 

and Yellow Flowers.
 

These flowers attract pollinators like Hummingbirds and Bumblebees. Trumpet Vine produces large seed pods. As these mature, they dry and split releasing thin, brown, papery seeds.

It is often used to cover arbors, walls, telephone poles, and fences.


Left on its own it will cover telephone poles or trees.


An established Trumpet Vine can easily grow 10’-20’ each season. It climbs like English Ivy using aerial rootlets which can take hold of most surfaces like stucco, wood, and brick walls. These rootlets can sometimes damage the structures they climb like the stucco surfaces of homes or wooden arbors.
 
The leaves of the Trumpet Vine are actually a group of leaflets from 1” to 3” long with serrated margins (photo).


Trumpet Vine should be pruned back annually to control its size and surface coverage due to its extreme vigor. It produces a thick growth good for hedges or summer visual barriers (photo).


It will also occasionally send up suckers some distance from the original planting. Suckers should be dug up unless you desire greater coverage. Trumpet Vine does well on low to regular water once established. It is hardy to USDA Zone 1.

To view a slide show of Trumpet Vine Click on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Alxs7Zh4To&feature=plcp

Contact the nursery for more information and pricing.

Photos & Narrative By:
Stephen Sain
Staff Plant Physiologist

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Weed Identification: Goatheads or Stickers

Goatheads ( Tribulus terrestris ) are native to Southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Goatheads are also called stickers, sticker weed, bullhead, devil’s weed, and puncturevine. Goatheads are easily recognized by their prostrate growth form, leaves with leaflets, yellow flowers, and stickers (Goatheads). If you miss’em visually then they will stab you painfully in the fingers as you work your garden, or stick to your clothing and shoes. Goatheads are the primary reason local bicyclists must get “thorn proof” tires for riding on area trails and streets. Goatheads have prostrate stems that radiate outward from one central point. Leaves are compound with smaller leaflets. Lemon yellow flowers form along the stems and fertilized flowers form fruits.   Fruits consist of several attached structures called nutlets (Goatheads). Each nutlet is a single seed that becomes hard or woody when mature. Each seed has two sharp spines that easily pene...

Weed Identification: Sand Bur

Sand Bur ( Cenchrus longispinus ) is native to North America. It has other names like sand spur, long-spined sand bur, hedgehog grass, and bur grass . Sand Bur is an annual grass usually growing with a prostrate growth form. It is similar in appearance to other grasses prior to seed formation. Individual plants may be 3’ in diameter, sometimes larger. Sand Bur is a common weed of sandy soils but also grows well elsewhere. Sand Bur will often root at stem nodes that are touching the ground. The root system of Sand Bur is shallow and fibrous making them easily pulled (when immature). Sand Bur produces a flowering spike. As seeds begin to form Sand Bur is easily recognized by its numerous sharp or burred seeds or long spines. As the burred seeds mature they are easily separated from the mother plant and their sharp spines stick to virtually anything. Sand Bur can disseminate its seeds long distances because its sharp spines will hitch a ride on skin, anim...

All About the Shantung Maple!

             The Shantung Maple ( Acer truncatum ) is also known as the Purple Blow Maple due to the color of its newly emerging leaves which are red-purple (see photo below). These young expanding red-purple leaves change to green as they mature. Leaves are small, about the size of Japanese Red Maple leaves, perhaps 3’-4’ wide at maturity.    The Shantung Maple grows 1′-2′ annually reaching 25″ tall and wide.    This is our tree for all planting situations. This Maple does well in heavy clay, sandy soils, full sun, or part shade. It can be planted in a lawn or next to a hot asphalt street (see photo below). It seemingly is a happy tree enjoying life wherever it is placed.    One place we would not recommend planting this tree is in a rockscape which is just too hot and inhospitable to support this beautiful tree.               A smaller tree, the Shantung Ma...