Gardening question - climbing vines

I know there are some avid gardeners here so I thought I'd pose the question of my climbing vine.

My parents have a pergola with a virginia creeper on it. This thing is so invasive it isn't even funny. It's gorgeous and makes a wonderful shade canopy to sit under, but at one point it climbed under the siding on their house.

When we bought our house a few years ago, I built a small pergola to sit under on the back porch and planted a trumpet vine to climb up it and act as a shady canopy. I was warned at the time that trumpet vines can take a year or so to establish, so not to expect much in that first year, but that they'll easily grow 25' and cover a pergola. My trumpet vine is now 4 years old and has never gotten bigger than one spindly little runner of about 3 ft. I'm getting really annoyed at not having my shade to sit under on the back porch and an thinking of replacing this vine. It want something similar to the Virginia Creeper effect, but definitley not a Virginia creeper.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Am I not giving my Trumpet vine enough time? As of this year, it's exactly 2 inches tall right now and I'm seriously doubting it's going to do any better than last year. It's in a south facing garden, quite sheltered, but getting full sun and I'm in zone 5a.

If you're planting anywhere near your home or a structure you do not want destroyed, don't use trumpeter vine. Virginia creeper would be safer.

That's strange that your trumpeter vine isn't growing. When we moved in here there was a a couple of parts of the fence destroyed by it and we're constantly pulling the stuff up and spraying to kill it. We still can't get rid of it. Trumpeter vines are very fast growing, growing a least a foot (here) in a week or two.

Clematis vines are hardy for zone 5. I'm in mid-Michigan, which is also a zone 5, and I've seen some gorgeous clematis growing around here. I've never had any luck with trumpet vines either. My grandmother had one that totally engulfed her shed, but several starts off that bush never produced anything for me.

Trumpet Vine is an extremely invasive climber, strange yours isn't taking off. They usually need 2 seasons and then have to be heavily cut back as well as it will spread underground. Could it be the soil? Direct sunlight is important and you said it has lots of light.

I would never plant Virginia Creeper!! Its growing wild in the fence line between my veg garden and the neighbor's messy part and its horribly invasive. My 93 year old client has this vine rampant on a hillside and I spend several hours each growing season hacking it back so it won't take over parts of her perennial gardens.

A plant that is slower but nice is climbing hydrangea. Also you can plant several climbing roses-like William Baffin for instance. I now that people plant grapevines or hops esp the gold hops cultivars too.

There is a cultvar of wisteria "Aunt Dee" that survives in Zone 5a (in 4b/5a) but I don't have much experience with anyone growing it around here.

You could try bittersweet (not the invasive oriental one though) but you need both a male and female plant. But I have another client who has it growing up a tree but this is the 4th year I've worked for her and I noticed last year that I see new shoots popping up a distance away from the original so I'm a bit hesitant to recommend it.

I've seen lots of nice big healthy clematis vines around here, and even had one myself on my balcony. They seem to do well in our climate, coming back and spreading more each year. Nice variety of colours too.
What about honeysuckle? Looks pretty and smells lovely too.

What zone are you in? Lots of vines, save a couple of clematis, one or two honeysuckles (look for the name Morden in those) and virginia creeper don't handle anything colder than zone 4 but there are some that are zone 2 hardy although I think creepers would live in the arctic circle if they had a place to clime. If I recall, trumpet vine is zone 5 and otherwise is an annual and will reproduce from seed, and in rare cases, the root will survive but only send up one feeble weedy looking shoot.

We have a gorgeous clematis on the southern side of our arbor. We planted it several years ago and, although it took a good year or so to really get started, it's beautiful now. We have red wine Weigela next to the clematis, so the clematis roots stay a bit cool and the plant can twine around the lattice on the arbor. I would highly recommend a clematis; make sure you get a taller variety that will climb as I think there are some shorter varieties in the shops now, too.

I want to try a white wisteria in our moon garden, but I've heard that wisteria can take seven years sometimes to bloom. I think the white flowers would be very pretty under the light of the full moon. We're still deciding if we want to go with the wisteria. They are truly beautiful, but, like I said, they can take awhile to start flowering.

We're in central PA, which, I think, is Zone 5, too.

One of my favorite vines is the Sweet Autumn Clematis. It grows rapidly and will cover just about anything it climbs on. We have one planted at the base of a purple martin house and last fall it grew tall enough to completely cover the house. It also has a heavenly scent when it blooms in the fall, with pretty little 4-petaled stars. I've never had a problem with 'clematis wilt' with this plant, either. (I'm in zone 5)

Virginia creeper often doesn't go too crazy here and clematis often strains under our summer heat.

Just remember, for those that have or want to plant clematis, that it is a toxic plant. If you have children, dogs, cats, or other animals that could chew on it, plant it somewhere else or not at all. It is in the ranunculaceae family and my own personal experience of a kitten getting a hold of a plant from this family was rather unpleasant - luckily with vet treatment he was fine, but it was very painful for him.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Everyone who's seen my trumpet vine is baffled by it. My mom's trumpet vine is currently eating a fence, but yeah, mine hasn't even started climbing this year. My only worry with clematis (I have one, a Duchess of Edinborough, and love it) is that I haven't found one that gets tall enough and can form enough of a canopy to provide shade. I'll keep and eye out for the "Sweet Autumn" one, though.

I'm looking for something that can reach about 20' to cover what I need to to cover. I've heard wisteria is nice, and I certainly don't mind waiting for it (As this %^&# trumpet vine can attest to )

One of my coworkers suggested I try a Silverlace vine. Anyone ever heard of it?

Try this link for silverlace vine: I've seen it used as a decorative dried flower, but don't really know anything about the vine itself.

http://www.directgardening.com/detai...ProductID=4624