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westover_gw

Trumpet vine/creeper (campsis radicans). Invasive?

westover
14 years ago

I just saw a telephone pole in my neighborhood that was covered with a trumpet vine/creeper. The vine looked great, and it hid the unsightly pole, and I don't think it can escape because it's surrounded by concrete on all sides.

But I see from comments on different websites that the trumpet vine/creeper is often described as "invasive". I want to be a responsible gardener, and I am genuinely confused about what "invasive" means. This vine is native to much of the eastern U.S. Can a native plant be considered "invasive" in its home range"? It doesn't overpower everything in Georgia like kudzu does, so what keeps it in check in its home range? I didn't find it on the Oregon list of noxious weeds, so is it considered "invasive" here or not? Can that vine I saw really escape the concrete prison around it? Or will birds carry its seeds into the forest and start a new invasive menace? Clarifications appreciated.

Comments (4)

  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    14 years ago

    I find the term "invasive" often used to describe plants that do not pose ecological threats but rather exhibit aggressive or unruly garden behavior. Trumpet vine fits into this catagory. To my knowledge, it does not escape cultivation, it does not invade natural areas and it does not pose an ecological threat. It does, however, sprout countless shoots from a very wide spreading root system when mature and so can sometimes wreak havoc in a confined garden........mine produced root shoots throughout a paved patio and was a bear to try to remove completely. Invasive? No. A serious garden thug? Yes :-)

    But the hummingbirds surely loved it. And I did too until it came time to clean up the prolific and very messy blossom drop and remove the new roots shoots that popped up yards away.

  • dottyinduncan
    14 years ago

    I planted one in a very hot, dry area and promptly forgot it. It lived. The next year, it put out lovely growth which tried to pry the boards off the house. I tried to pull it out of the ground and couldn't, the roots were quite deep. In the many years since then it has sent shoots up in the lawn which get mowed of course as well as some in the flowerbed. I never let them get very big, but it keeps trying. I wish I had planted it away from the house where it could ramble where it wasn't a problem. It would look lovely climbing a power pole or decorating a farm fence.

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    I've pruned in the past at a multistory Seattle mansion that had one of these plastered against the front of it (along with a massive wisteria that had been grown up over the top of an atrium). Not being willing to wobble at the top of the firemen's ladders being kept on the site for the purpose I usually ended up holding the bottom one as still as I could while another party got the vine off of the gutter and roof.

    I was more impressed by the sheets of piano wire the wisteria was sending across the surface of the narrow foundation bed occupied by both.

    You read about nightmare accounts of such plants in eastern North America, where it really does rain all the time unlike here where it is supposed to be so wet. We don't have the same problems with the same plants due to our summer drought. (We do have rampant growths of ivy, blackberry and Clematis vitalba on local public and private lands).

  • Rockin-Grandmom
    10 years ago

    I am afraid to plant Trumpet Vine/creeper eventhough I know the hummingbirds love it. What is a vine I could plant to grow up my porch railing, that might bring hummers, and not be so hard to control? I live in Central Pa. Thanks

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