To let ivy overgrow my house?

[Zola1223]

I live in a small, mid-terrace red brick house. It's blank. I think it's ugly and uninspiring and lacking in character. It's screaming out for some greenery but the front garden is a driveway and DP refuses to give it up.

I've tried a hanging basket but the house is north facing so the pot didn't do very well. There's a hedge separating us from the neighbour on the left but it's not really enough.

I just went on a walk and saw that a neighbour has let the entire of the front of their house be consumed by ivy and some other stuff.

I’d hate all the insects that live in it coming in each time I opened the windows. Ugh!

*imip

We have been growing a wisteria for 5 years ... Our door is painted a wisteria colour

Ooh what's the colour called?

Would wisteria cope in the shade all year round? Sorry I know I could Google this but I am starved of social interaction.

You need to look at some design ideas from Screen With Envy. Nods to other Mumsnetters who remember this. These look amazing in their own right against a wall.

Echo the comment re spiders!

Ivy can cause structural damage!

Imip it will shoot up now likely!

Op, wisteria can tolerate shade, but it may cause it to not flower, or flower weakly, is there really no sun at all on the front of the house?

I have a similar issue in that the front of my house faces north and the front elevation never gets direct sun on it. There are a number of roses which will grow on a north wall: Clare Austin as mentioned, Golden Showers, Madame Alfred Carriere. Climbing roses will need supports to be tied into so some sort of framework is essential, maybe a trellis or horizontal wires. A PP mentioned Rambling Rector, which is a rambling rose and not a climber (not being pedantic, they are different) and probably too vigorous for OP's situation.

If you google rose nurseries quite a few will come up, they usually advise on aspects like planting and aftercare and often sell other climbers too, so worth looking at them even if you don't fancy a rose. The ones I use have filters so you can specify what challenges you're facing, like will it have to be grown in a pot, or will it thrive in shade, things like that. They are very useful when you're not sure what you want.

Just, in the name of all that's holy, NOT IVY. It's far more trouble than it's worth!

Gosh no. I had to sort out a service users house. The ivy had come through the brickwork into the living room loads had to be spent on making her house watertight again.
As said up thread, roses like Claire Austin, James Galloway or the lovely Mme Alfred Carriere which quite like north facing walls are much better.

Ivy eats the mortar on the brickwork and also can block huge amounts of light over time. When we moved here the back of the house was covered in ivy, we thought it was charming but after a few weeks we could see it was making the bathroom very dark, forcing its way inside windows, bringing spiders and bugs in through the new cracks it was creating and causing lots of other small problems that added up to a big headache. We pulled it all down (a huge task) and don't regret it at all. We replaced it with two roses on a trellis and 5 years on it looks amazing.

We had to repoint the brickwork after we took it down

The weight of overgrown ivy took our garden wall down during a storm. It’s very invasive and gets right into the mortar.

My dh loves gardening but loathes ivy with a vengeance . It’s a villain that overtakes and refuses to go damaging things in its pathway. Don’t do it. Plenty of other things that can enhance your frontage. Climbing roses etc.

go for a climbing hydrangea or a climbing rose instead. much easier to keep under control and you will get flowers.

I'd look into getting the brickwork rendered rather than growing something right against it. Climbers like ivy that suck onto brickwork will end up staining it. I tried to remove some ivy which had grown onto my wall from my neighbour's house and despite numerous attempts to remove it with brick cleaning acid, the little suckers would not come off.

There's potential to cause structural damage to your house if there's any gaps in the pointing and wet plant matter resting against it. If you're keen on having a climber I'd probably opt for a freestadning planter with trellis like this and leave a small gap between the house and the trellis.

Bluntness100

Op, wisteria can tolerate shade, but it may cause it to not flower, or flower weakly, is there really no sun at all on the front of the house?

There's a BIT of sun in the morning, like at dawn, but otherwise the front is completely shaded all day.

Spiders. Nope. No way.

Ivy is awful but Virginia Creeper is OK. Looks fab in the autumn too when it turns bright red

You shouldn’t grow anything that is:

A) Extremely rampant/capable of covering a huge space like the entirety of a house in relatively short time

B) ‘self clinging’ as they can damage the brickwork and cause problems with mould.

Ivy is both.

Stick to NON clinging plants that require tying into wire or trellis eg honeysuckle, wisteria, climbing roses, jasmine and aren’t too fast growing/massive.

Clematis Montana for example isn’t self clinging and it requires no pruning so sounds ideal but it’s huge and too big for a terraced house IMO.

Stay away from Virginia creeper!
It’s both self clinging and will absolutely swamp your house and then some!

Sorry to hijack, but do any of you knowledgeable rose experts know if Mme Alfred Carriere would tolerate an alkaline soil?

I love that rose, and would love to grow it up the front and across the wall between the ground and first windows. I love the idea of that scent drifting in through my bedroom window in the summer.

But our soil is chalk, and therefore alkaline. It's had lots of organic matter added over the years, but it's still alkaline.

Sorry, should have added, we face south-south-east, so sunny all morning and into the early afternoon in the summer months.

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=258

Ivy usually doesn't damage brick work, but might overgrow too much.

@LakieLady My Mme Alfred Carriere is growing in slightly alkaline soil and seems very happy there. (I have a few acid loving plants which I have in pots, as our soil is too alkaline for them) You add lots of organic matter and that's the most important thing. I'd give it a try!

Mine is growing in a dappled shade part of the garden, when she is in full bloom the perfume pervades the garden path alongside. It's glorious!

This is a pic of the door and wisteria. Doesn’t do justice to the wisteria. I don’t know the door paint colour, but it has faded and dh has had to resand it. And the. We have to repaint. It’s a standard off the shelf colour. Hope it’s not too outing.