Getting Campsis suckers to root.

I have a nice large C. radicans flava growing on an arbor, making some nice deck shade and a gorgeous floral display every year for quite some time. In the yard, both close to the vine and not-so-close, there are seedlings (or so I thought...) that usually get cut down by the lawnmower. Well, this year there are two very strong plants coming up that I decided to train as topiaries.

In getting them onto sturdy stakes, I dug around the base of the shoots, and saw that they are actually suckers coming up off a rather stout, fleshy root, some 15 ft away from the plant's base. I also can see that neither the running root nor the shoots have any root on them.

So, at this point my plan is to nick the root or perhaps cut the end of it away, just past the shoot and then nick or scrape the base of the sucker and apply some rooting hormone, cover with soil and hope for the best.

Does anyone have experience with rooting trumpet vine with any successful strategy to follow? I love to hear what you have to say. Thanks. R.

OK, here's what I did:

When the plants lost their foliage, I took a spade and cut a deep circle around each plant, cutting it off from the main plant and severing any further root spread. I'm hoping they will perform as root cuttings, despite there being a large amount of growth attached. Time will tell.

PS: I did pile soil up around the stems and scraped a little on the stem. I really didn't check for results.

This message was edited Nov 20, 2019 12:09 PM

should grow. Root cuttings work well on my passion flower vines. And Trumpet is harder to kill.