Grow ivy, very limited sun

[Puddin' Man]

Hi,

Densely populated urban residential area. Between my little brick bungalow and the next house. There's some hasta and surprise lilies out there, but I need ivy. Couldn't figger how to water the hasta last season (without watering the house walls) with sprinkler, so I spent way, way too much time standing out there with the garden hose. Need ivy, willing to sacrifice hasta, etc to get it (if necessary).

Around the corner is a little wooded easement with lots of ivy. Can I just snip, say, 10" lengths from there and plant them by my house? Would potting soil and/or fertilizer be a good idea? Really need to get this off the ground. I am not knowledgable re gardening.

Also timing. I am in midwest: avg. hi/lo is now 53/29 F.

I know all about invasive nature of ivy, no warnings necessary. Maybe half the houses on the block have some ivy and apparently aren't having difficulty controlling it.

Thx, Puddin'

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." - Bertrand Russell

[Dan Espen]

Hasta From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word Hasta may refer to one of the following:

• A Latin word meaning spear. * A Sanskrit word meaning hand. * A Nakshatra of Hindu Astrology. * An Italian city currently known as Asti.

You probably mean Hosta.

Cut off any amount of ivy and stick it in the ground and it will take off.

I just had a little plant start by itself near my garage so I thought I'd watch it for a while. After a few months, I noticed a bit of it on the inside of my garage, I thought it worked it's way thru the doorway. Nope, it went right under the sill plate into the garage. It's gone now.

What you really want is pachysandra or vinca.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Yep. Two bulletproof plants, and pretty, too. At my previous house, I had pachysandra in a spot where it got almost no moisture in the summer. In winter, it was subjected an endless barrage of falling ice chunks. The plants just laughed at this treatment, and looked better with every passing year. I did nothing to them except a little fertilizer ever 2 or 5 years.

[Puddin' Man]

Yup. Forgot the spelling.

Reason I queried, young couple 2 doors down went to a lot of trouble to start maybe 30 ivy snips last spring under a shade tree. Didn't take off. Maybe 10 left.

I've had weeds do that.

So you say. I don't know anything about 'em. Ivy works for most neighbors, oughta work for po' me.

P

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." - Bertrand Russell

[Norminn]

You can water with a soaker hose or with microsprinklers. Put "Y" adapter on spigot, so's you can still use the faucet. Attach soaker hose, or attach adapter for microtubing to one side. Put down your microtubing with sprikler or drip heads where you want them.

If you take ivy cuttings, they will start more reliably if you put them in water until good sized roots develop. Strip off leaves on the bottom part of the stem that will be under water. Ivy is really nasty when it gets behind aluminum siding, but you know that :o)

[Norminn]

If it grows up and around the trunk, it can kill the tree.

Hosta is perfect under a tree, and comes in lots of colors.

[mm]

I wish I had done that. Instead I waited 20 years until I found some growing out of the woods and up to my fence. Then 2 more years until it reached the house. Now it's about 2 inches up the brick wall of the house and I'm expecting another 12 inches this year. It's a lot prettier than the creeping charlie I used to let grow up the house.

[Dan Espen]

I've had pachysandra die back in only extreme drought conditions. I never water or feed it.

The back half of my yard I purposely leave to nature. It's a large area about one third pachysandra and one fifth vinca.

If the pachysandra near the house dies, I just move some more from the wild area of the yard.

[mm]

Does it get behind T1-11, also? That's some kind of wood product in

4x8' sheets.

My first story is brick, but after that it's t1-11, so I need to know before it grows another 8 feet!

[Puddin' Man]

...

I've always heard ivy'll bugger your mortar.

I'd keep it 100% OFF the house.

P

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." - Bertrand Russell

[Dan Espen]

I don't think you want it anywhere near anything you want to keep, brick included.

[mm]

You can do that but I won't. That's why they call it the Ivy League.

"So you say. I don't know anything about 'em. Ivy works for most neighbors, oughta work for po' me."

I would not be so blunt, but when I first read this, in this very thread, I saw that you liked that style.

So I want you to see if you like receiving it as well as sending it.

[Oren]

I use a "rooting hormone", skin the bottom couple inches, dip the ivy in and put in the soil..water.... A tiny bottle from Lowe's goes a long, long way.

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[Oren]

Never, ever heard this. Do you mean a "Strangler Fig" that uses a host and kills it?

I see healthy trees with ivy.

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Then why did you ask?

[Puddin' Man]

Jeez. Why not read the original queries? They are often informative:

P

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." - Bertrand Russell

[mm]

Thanks. I'll look into it.

We used to have euanymus (sp?) on our house and it looked very nice. It was there when we bought the house, but we only lived there for 9 years.

[Norminn]

Ivy and figs very different .. it was definitely ivy, from a houseplant transplanted outside. Florida. Strangler figs are trees, ivy a vine.

[Dan Espen]

Here's a trick I use. Not sure about spelling? Plug it into Google. I got:

Euonymus

It's a genus name so there seems to be a lot of variation:

But it appears to be a shrub, it wouldn't be "on" your house. Despite the attractive appearance of a vine covered house, I don't think you want anything growing on a house.

Ivy is particularly destructive but I don't think there is anything that's good on a house.

[Michael B]

Ivy is a cancer to mortar. Here's a one-page pdf on it.

gives advantages as well as disadvantages.

On Mar 11, 8:55 am, Dan Espen