GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

15-03-2004, 11:09 PM

(Kat) wrote:

Hi-
I have a small (75 sq foot) area that has been overgrown with English
Ivy. We spent all day yesterday raking and removing any signs of it.
I feel we were pretty successful in getting most of the ivy out but am
worried because I live in a condo and the neighbors have the ivy
growing on their fence. No one lives there at the moment (hasn't in
years) so no one takes care of their area. Do you think I need to
clear out the ivy growing on their fence since it is less than three
feet from the area I've cleared?

I would cut off anything that is hanging off the fence on YOUR side of
the property, but try not to damage what is on their side, since you
do not want to get sued. If this is the normal english ivy (hedera
helix) and not some fancy cultivar, it can grow fairly quickly and
there is no reason to leave it hanging over on your side where it has
that much more of a head start on getting back into your yard. I love
the variegated and miniature forms of english ivy, but the standard
stuff I am beginning to despise. It can be quite hard to get rid of
when you have a well-established patch of it.

I have some roundup and though I might spray it on the newly cleared
area to kill off anything we may have missed.

Roundup should be used on the leaf surfaces of things you want to
kill. Since you have already removed most of the ivy, there is not
much point. You could wait for a while and see if any starts coming
back up and then spray it. But I think the absolute best thing for
you to do if you want to replant the area soon is to work the soil up,
removing any plant material you find as you go. You can use a tiller,
hoe or whatever to do this, but if the area is more or less bare after
the removal of the ivy, I would suggest two of my favorite tools. The
"garden claw" and "garden weasel" - the claw is great for breaking up
soil to begin with and the weasel is fantastic for running over soil
after you have alrady worked it up and weed seeds and things like that
are starting to sprout.

Another option if you are willing to wait a while before planting is
to cover the area with newspapers and mulch on top of that (lawn
clippings, shredded leaves, compost, etc.) or simply to cover the area
with plastic for a while. The former will kill off any remaining ivy
and other plants and will rot them along with the newspaper and enrich
the soil, worms will also love this and the end result should be soil
which is very easy to work up - the plastic method will also kill off
any ivy but it kills other stuff in the soil, does not enrich your
soil like the other method and then you have all of that plastic to do
something with.

Is this necessary or do you think pulling out the vines
was good enough? I would like to replace the ivy with new shrubbery
and/or flowers, will spraying the roundup hurt my chances of growing
something new there? I am a complete novice when it comes to
gardening ( first place of my own ) so any help would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks!

If you spray Roundup, you need to wait a few days before planting
there and many people would tell you that you need to wait much longer
than the label claims. I only use roundup in places where I am not
going to plant anything at least that year, and then I only use it on
things which are exceptionally hard to get rid of. But that is my
preference.