I snapped this shot of the old English ivy that had covered my butt-ugly fence for decades to illustrate a really important fact: this stuff is waaay too thick, vigorous and heavy to be enveloping the canopies of trees. But just in case a picture isn’t worth a bunch of words, here’s the rap sheet on English ivy in trees:
- It provides the ideal home for all sorts of harmful insects, including gypsy moths.
- Its sheer weight can easily kill smaller trees, like dogwoods.
- When allowed to grow more than 10 feet or so vertically, it matures, changes form, and makes berries, which are then distributed by birds all over the place. Not nice.
Killing the Damn Stuff
But no matter how much ivy may be growing up into your trees, it’s a breeze to kill and remove it. Simply slice a section from each ivy trunk at any point you can reach it, and then let it die a slow death. Eventually the dead leaves will fall and the birds will use the old vines as nesting material and you’ll feel like a hero.
Now how to kill ivy at the base is a trickier proposition, which leads me to the question: Can ivy stumps be killed without using a synthetic herbicide? Not quickly, but it can be done slowly by drilling holes in the ivy stumps and then covering them with fresh compost. Another method that’s recommended for organic gardeners is covering the stump with plastic and again, simply waiting.
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One more reason to avoid planting English Ivy – it provides a fabulous cover for rats. They can run around all over the place and be protected from predators.
I found that small and medium sized plants can be pulled by hand relatively easily. When I lived in NC our backyard was a carpet of the dreadful stuff and my husband and I spent a summer pulling it out. It didn’t return the next year, unlike other problem plants I’ve tried to remove.
English Ivy is taking over the woodlands here in the Pacific Northwest. It also creates a “sail effect”. It catches the wind and brings trees down. It’s on the noxious weed list for our state. Why they’re allowed to sell it is beyond me.
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