Jim and Nick wrote,

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
jim wrote:
Once upon a time we had a pretty little indoor ivy with a dainty
variegated
leaf.We would feed and water it and train it up a short cane so that it
made
an interesting feature on a sunny window-sill. ... In
desperation we painted each leaf with a glyphosate-type gel and waited
until
it reached the roots which would then obligingly die leaving a useful
compost. Ah! but the ivy cannot read the instructions on the jar, can it
?
...
Ivy grows on derelict buildings and dead trees everywhere - and
that's
where it should stay.

Ivy doesn't read newsgroups, either :-)

I am a bit surprised by your posting, as ivy normally takes a LONG time
to reach 9" in diameter, and I hadn't heard that the variegated forms
regress to the dark green ones.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I'm surprised too, I to had a potted ivy that was replanted in the garden.
After around 10 years it covered the back fence completely, and splendid it
looked to. My only problem was that I chose to grow it up a rather
dilapidated fence, which eventually had to be replaced and as the ivy had
well entangled itself I was left with little choice but to cut down the ivy
altogether. Although well rooted, the main trunk was no more than about 4"
at its thickest part.

In the main the ivy remained variegated except where it had "tapped" into
the trees at either end of the fence and the leaves here were indeed giant
sized dark and leathery, the loss of variegation I thought was due to the
lack of sunlight in the shade of the trees themselves, as many variegated
plants revert to green in shady areas.

I still rather miss the ivy now and may consider re-planting new ones,
except that I don't miss the masses of snails that hid in there!

Jeff.

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