English Ivy will grow and smother trees in east TN. My parent planted
it in thier backyard up against the woods where it was very shady.
When they passed, after 25 years, it was smothering the trees along
the edge of the woods.


I've only heard people from the west coastish areas having problems with
ivy. The say it smothers and kills trees. East coastish ivy seems to
do fine in almost full sun, for me anyway. Any that was in PA and now
in TN. We can get poison ivy that will smother and kill trees, but it's
pretty easy to walk around the trunk and cut all the poison ivy. No
need to remove it, soon it will be dead and allow sun to reach the tree
again.