On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 20:03:15 +0100, K wrote:

" writes
On Jun 2, 10:33 am, "David \(Normandy\)"
wrote:

I know nothing about birds I'm afraid but I too have a house covered
in Virginia Creeper. We have it trimmed once a year usually around
March before the new growth gets going. Don't try and pull it out
from under your tiles after trimming, just leave it there it will die.

Last year we didn't have ours trimmed and it went up under gutters
etc., but we waited until all the birds had left the multiple nest,
around July in our case and thengave it a metre trim, it doesn't harm
it when you trim it.

This year we paid for a man to come in as our house is pretty high and
being a professional, it looked great afterwards, he took it down
about a metre and a half, he says it will reach the gutters by the end
of the season so it needs to be done every year.

If he's only taken it down a metre and a half, it'll be at the gutters
by mid June! ;-)

I decided mine was too much for me to manage - cutting it to about 6ft
still had it at the eaves by the end of the season - so sadly I've had
to remove it all.

I've now come to the same conclusion about variegated ivy and Clematis
montana - it is amazing the amount of growth things can put on once
they've got their roots well and truly dug in.

We had the same problem. It got into the roof space and attracted vast
numbers of wasps in the summer so that we could hardly risk opening a
window. I cut it off at ground level and eventually got rid of the
growth as it died and dried out. It didn't regrow at all. Even now,
after a bout 8 years, you can still see where it was on the walls.
Something much, much worse is the notorious Russian Vine. I once
planted one at a previus house to cover an unsightly brick wall at the
end of the back garden, which was actually someone's garage. The
monster grew completely over the garage, right up the top of a row of
trees, got through the garage roof, entwining itself around the
rafters and dangling down on to the owner's car. Cutting that off at
ground level didn't stop it. It kept coming back with renewed vigour.