Campsis radicans 'Judy'

A yellow-flowered, floriferous selection of a vine that normally comes orange. 'Judy' climbs high and fast on aerial rootlets, carrying compound deciduous leaves of glossy toothed leaflets, and from midsummer onward produces terminal clusters of trumpets in a clear soft yellow with a darker throat. The flowers are three inches long and shaped precisely for a hummingbird's bill, which is not a coincidence and not lost on the birds; a trumpet creeper in full flower is the busiest thing in a southern garden in July. Bloom continues in waves until frost.

This is a Woodlanders introduction, and one we are fond of. We found the original plant in eastern North Carolina. The well-known yellow-flowered 'Flava' is presumably of more northern provenance, and side by side the two are worth comparing: 'Judy' is the warmer, softer yellow, with the dark throat that 'Flava' lacks. Campsis comes from the Greek kampsis, a bending, for the curved stamens inside the trumpet, and radicans means rooting, describing the aerial rootlets that fasten the stems to whatever they climb. The species is native across the eastern United States, and in the wild you meet it at woodland edges, fence lines, and old field margins, usually thirty feet up a dead pine.

Which brings up the one thing every buyer should understand before planting. Campsis radicans is vigorous, and vigorous here means suckering, self-layering, and capable of prying at siding and gutters with those rootlets. Grown against a house wall it is a maintenance commitment. Grown on a stout free-standing post, arbor, pergola, fence, or a dead tree in a field, it is one of the great American garden plants and almost no work at all. Give it something that can take the weight, keep it off the building, and cut suckers as they appear.

Full sun for the heaviest flowering, and ordinary soil; rich ground and generous water produce leaves at the expense of flowers, so lean and dry is genuinely better here. Prune hard in late winter, back to a permanent framework, since flowers come on new wood and an unpruned plant becomes a top-heavy tangle that blooms out of sight. Hardy through zone 5, far colder than most people expect of something that looks tropical in bloom. Pair with Lonicera sempervirens, Bignonia capreolata, and late salvias for a hummingbird planting that runs from spring to frost.