A large, vigorous decorative plant, trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) develops a solid root system that’s at times difficult to cut. Referred to as trumpet creeper, trumpet vine grows 25 to 40 feet tall and 5 to 10 feet wide and conveys scarlet or orange, trumpet-shaped summer flowers. Growing in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 4 through 9, trumpet vine is invasive in some areas and elimination or transplantation is required. Its leaves cause skin irritation in some individuals wear protective clothing when handling the plant. Reduces transplant shock when transplanting trumpet vine to a different position, pruning its origins.
Eliminating Trumpet Vine
Wear a shirt, long pants and gloves. Prune the trumpet vine with pruning shears or a pruning saw that a stump 3 to 4 ft tall stays. Push a sharp spade to the soil 1 foot in the trumpet blossom’s foundation as deeply as you can, cutting the trumpet vine’s roots by placing one foot on the top of the spade’s blade and forcing it down, or by lifting it up and stabbing it down through the roots. Push down on the handle to lever up the spade . Function the spade handle backward and to start a trench. Push on the spade in, cut on the trumpet vine roots and then loosen the root ball.
Dig on soil from the trench to 18 inches cutting through them and removing dirt covering the trumpet vine roots.
Function the spade under the trumpet vine root chunk, levering the plant upward and cutting at its origins until it leaves the dirt. Alternatively, push over the bead stump to expose the roots, eliminate the dirt covering them and cut them.
Transplanting Trumpet Vine
Push a spade to the soil between the base of the trumpet vine trunk and the border of its branches that are smallest in early spring or fall to transplant the blossom the next spring or fall. Lift the trumpet vine’s lower branches and then wrap twine around them. Pull the twine and tie it so that the ground at the base of this trumpet vine is apparent. Push on the spade into the soil to make a circle around the trumpet vine foundation at the distance marked.
Dig a trench 18 inches deep outside the circle marked around the trumpet vine, stabbing at it through the origin and cutting the trumpet vine roots by lifting the spade, or pushing with your foot on the top of the blade of the spade. Separate the topsoil in the subsoil as you eliminate it. Subsoil is not the same colour and texture and lies under topsoil.
Refill the trench around the trumpet vine, replacing the topsoil following the subsoil. Business the ground and water the trench to eliminate air pockets and then settle the soil. Untie and remove the twine.
Tie up the trumpet vine’s lower branches the spring or fall after cutting at its own roots. Dig a trench just outside the trench that is first. To loosen the root ball and push on the blossom backward and then dig cutting through the sections with loppers or the spade. When the roots are cut, lift out the trumpet vine.
