Teresa, you can do it either way. Just make sure if you have a trellis it's a strong one if you are growing the large heavy gourds. I had a birdhouse gourd vine get away from me one year and finaly found it, it had run itself up under my cucumber plants and ran along the top of the fence with it being under the cuke it only got one gourd on it and that was at the end of the 20 ft fence.
