I have ivy growing up the side of my garage and every now and again I have to cut / rip it back as it gets into the eaves and into the guttering. When I get around to it I find it messy and hard work and the ivy looks a mess for a while. I am wondering if anyone has any tips (with tools used) to keep it maintained at about a foot below the eaves.
I have ivy growing up some fences. It's self seeded, but I quite like it. I trim it with the hedge cutter. I overheard something on Gardener's Questiontime where they said to keep it looking trim and tidy, make sure you trim it back at least every 2 years. After 2 year's growth, the branches become more woody as bearers for new branches, rather than for supporting leafy folliage directly. If you end up with just the bearer branches left, it will recover, but it will look bare until it does. I also observe that when trimmed, you get a dense covering of small leaves, whereas when not trimmed you get a less dense covering of larger leaves; I prefer the former.
However, I do keep it off the brickwork, as it leaves a horrible mess if you decide to remove it later, and I'm not sure I want it forever.
So do I, but it is somehow, quite satisfying peeling it back now and again.
Thinking about it, and depending on how tough your concrete is, it might just be possible to use a power washer on fine jet to cut a line more reasonably through the new growth each year. Or, perhaps even a plastic line strimmer might reach up there and cut you a neat line to rip back to.
S
Just cut through the stems there, job done. no need to battle with pulling it off. The old wood does remove itself over time.
NT
And you have untidy brown ivy and a fire risk instead. No substitute far taking a bit of care now and again.
S
Remove it and find another plant? I've seen a recommendation here for Passion Flower Fruit? which sounds interesting ....
My nasty 75 yr old neighbour is unrelenting in growing Ivy, and has made a wall of it inbetween our two gardens. So it becomes a chore for us to cut our side back. Hate the stuff :-(
I'm kind of thinking of boarding it over with a six foot wooden panel and hopefully killing half the light the plant gets.
Previously this idiot grew Ivy on our extension wall which faces him, by nailing (and latter cementing) trellis to our wall. Thankfully when he called the Police to make a silly non-related complaint about us, we sent the plods back over to set him right on his Ivy menace, and now a fence has been errected.
Last month, we awoke to find rose bushes at the front of our house have been vandalised. It's obviously him, but I'm a bit narked that the only response the Police have is that we should install CCTV... :-(
A rampant climber but needs to face south and have something to cling to because it doesn't have suckers like ivy. Looks a right mess in the winter mind
Even with 'global warming' I would not rely on passion fruit - especially with a cold winter like the one we just had. It would need a trellis too as it is not clinging like ivy.
Shame you are not getting on with your neighbour. Ours, has a huge extension which really spoils our garden with an unsightly bare and badly pointed wall. This was at one time partly hidden with the dreadful Russian ivy, which has huge leaves and takes over even the dreaded Leylandii when it 'gets out'. This foreign ivy knocked our garden shed over, but it may have started out as a planning condition, because otherwise I can't understand how it was ever granted. Anyhow, it took several years to finally (?) defeat the invader, and the new neighbour has been invited over to see the problem from this side. He agreed to let me put some vine eyes in the wall, and now I am training an espalier apple and a loquat to hide the nasty bricks, and I've straightened and strengthened the shed roof so I can stand on it to prune. It was just beginning to look nice when the snow rather flattened it; but it's better for both parties, than the monster foreign ivy.
On the other hand, our English ivy is probably the most useful thing in the garden. The flowers in the autumn are alive with bees and butterflies, when there are few other nectar sources about. Then later the birds rely on it for fruit and shelter. It gives us some cover when there are no leaves on the trees, or our garden would be very exposed indeed. It is a small price to pay to have to trim it now and then - though it does get more difficult as one ages, sadly.
Perhaps your neighbour is not so much unrelenting, as unable to keep up any longer. Could an offer of a little help solve both your problems perhaps? For a reasonably fit person, ordinary ivy is fairly easy to trim, after all, and is very good at covering eyesores like your 6ft panel might eventually prove to be. For a 75y old, things may not be so easy, and it sounds like he has good cause to consider your extension as much of an intrusion as you see his ivy. Who knows, perhaps your passion fruit idea on his trellis, might solve both your problems.
Must be worth a try,
S
It is. It's also beyond any neighbour counselling effort offered by the council/police. :-(
Ours, has a huge
Good for you, but unfortunately our idiot is just nasty. The 'Local Nutter' Full stop. Gets kicks from making other peoples lives miserable including his poor long suffering wife :-(
Nope, very fit and able. :-(
Our plans for that extension were delayed because he put in a claim for 'loss of light', and also posted us a letter demanding £2000 then he would withdraw it. Worth noting that at the time of that the ivy over most his property did a good job of blocking his light anyway, and it was just pure cussedness on his part.
Never mind, I'm used to blanking the abuse.
One day we are going to rip out his ailing and insecure fence and do a new 6-foot one down the rear garden (just inside our side). CCTV will be going up before that operation just to record his antics of retaliation, because it will probably be coming :-(
Sorry to hear that Adrian. Makes me a bit jealous cos there's lots of jobs I want to get on with but I'm not fit enough to do them at the moment (hence my increased presence in these columns lately), and I'm not as old as your neighbour yet (Though I might be by the time the NHS gets its finger out!).
Still at least the sun is shining lately.
Cheers, S
Aye, the neighbour's probably fitter than me - and I'm only slightly older than the prime minister...
Take it slow and enjoy is me motto, great things come to those who wait etc... When the NHS gets around to you, celebrate and rejoice! ;-)
Which is a problem ATM, rant #2. It's stopped me fixing things to the garage roof. Too hot. And previosly when it's not hot, it's wet. Then another issue getting to do stuff on the roof. Slippery moss (and no roofing ladders). And then there is the wind, cold and snow. Him upstairs doesn't want me on this roof!
And last year (when this UPVC cladding, guttering and aerial mast / dish mounting project started) when the weather was just right for rooftop climbing, we had busy wasps nests to get rid off. That became another project in itself.
So last year, this wimp procrastinated big time, and did nothing except moved the wasps out ;-(
I find this weather is better enjoyed inside in the shade of the garage workshop, where the insulation I have installed works wonders in keeping the place cool, I'm nearly out of earshot of demands from the others, and today I can enjoy the spoils of tat gained from the Dunstable Radio Club car boot sale visited yesterday.
Things purchased for projects that I know will never happen.
The motto - "He who gets buried under the largest clump of junk wins..."
:-)
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "John" saying something like:
Some gimp on Radio4 was wittering on about how nice ivy was and it should be left to grow all over. Oh yes, the insulation value of it, too. Failed to mention the open access for insects it provides. I chop it off as soon as I see it - horrible stuff.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian C saying something like:
Round-Up.
Ah, I'd forgotten about those sales. I think in the early days of home computing I attended one at Stockwood park and was utterly baffled by the rows and rows of incomprehensible stuff people were drooling over!
Incidentally, being an utter coward where roofs are concerned, when I have had to get up - even on a low house - I've generally thrown a rope right over and tied it to an upstairs window the other side, so I have something to hold on to. You just have to remember not to walk right over the ridge... ;-)
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