Hello, I have an incredible trumpet vine that has grown leaps and bounds, like I've never seen:




However, I've never been able to propagate it.

Here's my setup. I plant in a mixture of peat moss and perlite and place under plant light next to a window. I cover with plastic wrap but not tightly so there's room for air circulation. I water only when the top inch has dried out:



I get my cuttings but cutting the end of a branch and trim the leaves from the part that goes into the dirt. I wet and tap it in rooting hormone before sticking in a hole and then squeeze the container slightly.



In the photo below, the back row contain cuttings from Snail vine and they are doing fine. The front row are my trumpet cuttings. The ones in the right container already dead and one in the left container - which was from middle of a ticker stem - seems to be on its way dying.



Can you tell me please what I'm doing wrong? Do I need a heating pad? I am guessing temperature not an issue because I see water evaporation on the plastic cover after I water. I also thought perhaps this is just the wrong time of the year to do this, even though I'm in Los Angeles. But the vine doesn't seem asleep and is growing. Any tips would be much appreciated and thank you in advance.

Have you tried with any hardwood stems? It might be because the greenwood is just too young... I looked up snail vine, and now I will have to find somewhere in NorCal that sells them!!!

Polaatx2... that's a beautiful trumpet vine. Your doing everything right. Are you using sterile soil? Sometime plants don't need rooting hormone just place in damp sterile soil. If the plastic is getting water drops, it's to wet open up the plastic for air to circulate to dry the water accumulation. To much water can cause damping off. Also take the cuttings from this years growth.

Mabe remove all but two of the top leaves and cut off the top half of each leaf so the energy will be used in the rooting area. Heat is important keep above 60 degrees. Also sink two areas of leaf nodes in the soil. Sometimes when propagating it just takes lots of cuttings and more practice.

Sometimes the plant can be divided in early spring or late winter when it's dormant. Or dig up side shoots from the mother plant . Best success rate for me is to take runners from the plant and replant in same area next to trumpet vine. In summer temps I usually just remove all the leaves from a runner and place several feet under the soil. Leave runner attached to the mother plant. Add a few rocks to hold the soil over the runner. In just a few week it has roots , then cut from mother plant and cut several 4-5" sections and place in pots or replant in garden. It's a air rooting technique. It works every time.
Good Luck.

Don't use the dome or plastic and you will have much better rooting. The trumpet vine can't take the extra humidity.

I have had success with the trumpet vine with this technique. Take cuttings early in the year just as it is starting to come out of dormancy. Plant them in a plastic bottle mini greenhouse in a mixture of sharp sand and soil, and keep inside a greenhouse or polytunnel. I used cinnamon as a rooting powder but your favourite will be ok. Keep the sand/soil mix moist but not too wet as trumpet vine prefers free draining soil types. keep a check on the temperature in the propagator on hot days and ventilate it if necessary. Remove the top part of the propagator late July to August or as when the time is right and pot on in late September. The success rate was about 50% which I was very pleased with, I hope this helps.

Hello, I want to report back on my latest attempt / disaster trying to replicate this trumpet vine.

Last fall I put a stem under dirt in a hanging planter lined with coco (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vi...), with the very end of the stem sticking out. I put the planter on the ground right next to the vine itself.



Covered with mulch. Made sure it was watered well.

Nothing happened. The stem did not grow or die.

Today dug a little around the stem and felt the dirt is being held together by a network of lots of tiny roots.

I got so excited, I almost fell over.

I prepared a pot with worm casings and slow-release pellets and tried to transfer to pot.

What I realized was that the roots that I felt were actually coming from the GROUND UNDERNEATH where the planter was sitting, from the vine itself. There was only a single TINY root coming out of the stem itself, which almost immediately was destroyed when I tried to move the stem.



Anyway, for the heck of it, I dug up some of the roots and put it in the pot.



My question: does this pot of roots have any value? Any chance of it ever developing into anything if I mulch over it and keep it moist?

What if I had waited longer? Would the roots coming from the bottom sprout anything (hopefully before kingdom come)?

I am thinking NOT because there are no sprouts coming out of the ground around the vine, even though the ground is very moist (always in shade of the giant vine). Just tons and tons of stems covering a large pergola and invading the roof of the house and constantly needing trimming because it is so aggressive. It just doesn't want to be propagated, at least not with my half-assed methods.

@bumplbea

bumplbea said: Or dig up side shoots from the mother plant . Best success rate for me is to take runners from the plant and replant in same area next to trumpet vine. In summer temps I usually just remove all the leaves from a runner and place several feet under the soil. Leave runner attached to the mother plant. Add a few rocks to hold the soil over the runner. In just a few week it has roots , then cut from mother plant and cut several 4-5" sections and place in pots or replant in garden. It's a air rooting technique. It works every time.
Good Luck.

What I did was very similar to your method. But as I explained, the runner did not root, even after 10 months (except for a tiny root). The roots came from the vine itself finding its way through the coco into the planter.
Maybe my mistake was that I didn't remover the leaves from the end of the runners?
The vine's trunk is immediately surrounded by pavers and other plants. So not possible to lay down under soil "several feet" of runner, like you do.

To remove the leaves is what allows the roots to grow where the leaf nodes were. Not every rooting system works all the time. In my garden they grow in a controlled manner as long as they are clipped regularly. They have covered a 15'x40' arbor in less than three years with three separate plants planted in equal spacing in the soil. Some winters can be extremely harsh as some very hot extreme summers have been lately. Try growing roots on trumpet vine again in the late fall best time to grow roots from the vine from semi wood growth from the current years growth. REMEMBER to always Remove all the leaves from the vine planted under the soil and plant only a inch or two deep… and hold down vine planted with rocks. Fall and winter is when roots grow strong for spring growth. Good Luck.

Do root cuttings work? My sister sent me a bag of roots. There are only two that have any foliage. Will the woody roots send out new shoots?

Only a few plants can be successfully started from roots only.depending on what the roots look like. Should be thick color white strong .. just small curly brown roots are iffy. But you could try to plant live white roots . soak in root hormone then barely cover with light soil . keep most not wet.
I haven't tried to grow trumpet vines from roots only. It might have enough stored energy to send up new stalks. It needs warm temps 70' and light 8 hours a day.
Grow from roots insitu in winter it will possibly rot.
If you could get roots with stems attached there would be a better chance of success next season .