I love my trumpet vine. Gorgeous golden blooms will adorn it soon, and the hummingbirds will visit once again to sip the nectar. Along with the joys of the trumpet vine come a few problems. When I purchased the vine I was forewarned about the runners it would send out. In order to thwart the reproductive determination of the vine, I planted it in the ground in a large plastic pot. This preventative measure worked for years, but the trumpet vine has never given up, and in the last few years it has won. There are dozens of runners coming up throughout my gardens and yard. Some are as far away as twenty feet from the mother plant. Hmmm, I am going to have to get out there and try to root them out. That’s not a job I’m hankering to do in the high heat we have been having this week. Pleasures and problems, why are they so often intertwined? Bah!

A few examples of the unruly sprouting runners.