Thursday, September 16, 2010

Fence Row Trumpets

Last week, I did a photo shoot featuring scenes from a few Country Roads around Vicksburg (you can click on the link, if you would like to read that post).Today, I'd like to share some pictures I captured during that shoot of Trumpet Vines growing along one of the fence rows.

One of the prettiest and most colorful fence row vines, Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans) is also known as Trumpet Creeper and by a not-so-pretty name, Cow Itch Vine (because it produces a skin irritant that may cause redness, burning, and itching in susceptible individuals). Its bright orange (or yellow) trumpet-shaped flowers attract hummingbirds from miles around, but the plant is quite invasive and will grow to heights of 40 feet, covering everything in its path.

Its flowers are truly glorious, and I enjoyed seeing them up close through my lens and capturing them with my camera (you can click on the photos, if you'd like to see them closer).

While researching Trumpet Vines for this post, everything I read about them mentioned that they attract hummingbirds, but I did not see one hummingbird while I was photographing these vines. I can just imagine how exciting that would be, though — to capture hummingbirds swarming amongst those gorgeous flowers ... oh, be still my heart!

Are they not exquisite!

If you are traveling down a country road this Fall, and see trumpet vines growing on a fence row, I hope you will stop and take the time to see them up close for yourself. Who knows — you may even get to see some hummingbirds, too!

P.S. — If you are a regular visitor to Pat's Back Porch Musings, and can't find her, you can click on this link to visit her new TypePad blog: Back Porch Musings. The old blog disappeared for some reason, but Pat has created a new Back Porch Musings, and I'm sure it will be as lovely as the original. Hope you will join her there!

6 comments:

Deb said...

I love these photos....you really captured their beauty...

RachelD said...

How I love these beautiful old BUBBA flowers!! They just don't give up, and climb for the sun on anything they can catch hold of.

And the COLORS! They're every shade of orangey-peachy-gold there is.

You know JUST what to post every day! Fall is HERE! Officially.

Anonymous said...

Just gorgeous!!!! I was always told growing up that they were poisonous, so I always kept my distance. The are lovely though ;o)

Marjorie (Molly) Smith said...

I love those vines, I took some pictures of my sister's vine that is on their pasture fence a couple of week ago. Didn't have my camera but used my phone, it took ok pictures but not what I wanted. Thanks for sharing.
Molly

Anonymous said...

We love the Trumpet Vine. Somewhere in all my film photos, I have a shot of a shed on the farm, with trumpet vine growing over it.
We are talking about taking the clematis out, where the arbor is and plant some trumpet vine. The clematis has not done well. We are convinced the trumpet vine will thrive.

Thank you so much for the link, Janie. It sure has been an interesting week!

Tonja said...

I love this vine! And, what exactly would you call that color? It's pink and peach and salmon and coral aand orangey and beautiful!