Our house is engulfed in Virginia Creeper which while it looks lovely, is
now taking over the gutters and starting to get onto the roof. The upstairs
windows have almost vanished!
It needs trimming back a foot or two at the top. The dilemma is whether to
trim it back now or wait until Autumn? Virginia creeper can damage the roof
tiles, but it is also full of nesting sparrows which I don't want to disturb
or make homeless. There appear to be several nests immediately under the
guttering in the creeper which is exactly where I want to trim. Anyone know
when sparrows stop breeding and will leave home of their own accord?

Photo at http://www.avisoft.co.uk/Hpim5413a.jpg

David

On 2 Jun, 10:33, "David \(Normandy\)"
wrote:
Our house is engulfed in Virginia Creeper which while it looks lovely, is
now taking over the gutters and starting to get onto the roof. The upstairs
windows have almost vanished!
It needs trimming back a foot or two at the top. The dilemma is whether to
trim it back now or wait until Autumn? Virginia creeper can damage the roof
tiles, but it is also full of nesting sparrows which I don't want to disturb
or make homeless. There appear to be several nests immediately under the
guttering in the creeper which is exactly where I want to trim. Anyone know
when sparrows stop breeding and will leave home of their own accord?

Photo athttp://www.avisoft.co.uk/Hpim5413a.jpg


Could you just cut it from below the leading shoots which are creeping
up onto the roof and just leave them (the cut off parts) rather then
pulling them off now? You could then remove the dead parts later when
the birds have finished nesting.

On Jun 2, 10:33 am, "David \(Normandy\)"
wrote:
Our house is engulfed in Virginia Creeper which while it looks lovely, is
now taking over the gutters and starting to get onto the roof. The upstairs
windows have almost vanished!
It needs trimming back a foot or two at the top. The dilemma is whether to
trim it back now or wait until Autumn? Virginia creeper can damage the roof
tiles, but it is also full of nesting sparrows which I don't want to disturb
or make homeless. There appear to be several nests immediately under the
guttering in the creeper which is exactly where I want to trim. Anyone know
when sparrows stop breeding and will leave home of their own accord?

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.

Judith in France

On 2 Jun, 10:33, "David \(Normandy\)"
wrote:
Our house is engulfed in Virginia Creeper which while it looks lovely, is
now taking over the gutters and starting to get onto the roof. The upstairs
windows have almost vanished!
It needs trimming back a foot or two at the top. The dilemma is whether to
trim it back now or wait until Autumn? Virginia creeper can damage the roof
tiles, but it is also full of nesting sparrows which I don't want to disturb
or make homeless. There appear to be several nests immediately under the
guttering in the creeper which is exactly where I want to trim. Anyone know
when sparrows stop breeding and will leave home of their own accord?

Photo athttp://www.avisoft.co.uk/Hpim5413a.jpg



PS I don't know if you have plastic windows and fascia etc, but when
we removed our creeper, the suckers had got under the paint and it all
peeled off...

" 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.
--
Kay

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.

On Jun 2, 8:03 pm, 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! ;-)

It's the tiny leafed one that I have here and it seems to grow a
little slower than another one I had at my last house. This one is
called Vettchi or something like that???? But, you are of coure
right, I think 2 metres would have been better to have lopped off the
top.

Judith

David (Normandy) wrote:

Our house is engulfed in Virginia Creeper which while it looks lovely, is
now taking over the gutters and starting to get onto the roof. The upstairs
windows have almost vanished!
It needs trimming back a foot or two at the top. The dilemma is whether to
trim it back now or wait until Autumn? Virginia creeper can damage the roof
tiles, but it is also full of nesting sparrows which I don't want to disturb
or make homeless. There appear to be several nests immediately under the
guttering in the creeper which is exactly where I want to trim. Anyone know
when sparrows stop breeding and will leave home of their own accord?

Photo at http://www.avisoft.co.uk/Hpim5413a.jpg

David
Your only real problem is the way that any actions on your part are
constrained by the prresence of nesting birds. See the Wildlife and
Coutryside Act at : http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-3614