When Is My Trumpet Vine Going To Bloom?

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When is my trumpet vine going to bloom?
  • Updated: Sep. 05, 2012, 1:33 p.m.
  • Published: Sep. 05, 2012, 12:33 p.m.
By
  • George Weigel | Special to PennLive
trumpet.vine.flower.JPGGeorge WeigelThe flowers that you should see on a trumpet vine.

Q: I planted a trumpet vine 3 years ago. It hasn't bloomed yet. Will it bloom next year?

When can I prune the vine?

A: Trumpet vines are notoriously slow to start blooming. They often focus mainly on growing shoots the first two years, then start to flower the third year and beyond. However, I've heard of cases where people didn't get their first flowers until 5 and even 7 years after planting.

Pruning and training sometimes can help get tardy trumpet vines blooming. Since they bloom (or are supposed to bloom) on new wood, the time to prune them is end of winter or very early spring. Try giving your plant a good whack-back at the end of the coming winter. Thin out excess growth and shorten both main shoots and side shoots, taking as much as two-thirds of the total wood.

Also try training the main shoots to horizontal positions. Branches growing horizontally supposedly flower better than branches growing up.

And if you see shoots coming up from roots in places where you don't want the vine to spread, shovel them out. Trumpet vines are big, fast-growing and some would say invasive vines that barely skip a beat even with major butcherings.

George Weigel

George Weigel is a retired Pennsylvania certified horticulturist who has been writing garden columns and tips for The Patriot-News and PennLive.com since 1993. He is the author of five gardening books,... more

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