ivy covered garden/trees, what to do?

[PiggyPenguin]

Basically I have just moved. The new garden is lovely but hasn't been cared for and is very overgrown. The main problem is the ivy which is everywhere. There are several large trees and they are just covered in it, the stems of the ivy are thicker than my 9 year olds arms.

I am not an experienced gardener but am fairly certain that this is not an ideal situation. What is the best way to deal with it? I am assuming it needs to come off the trees but it reaches about 25 feet + so not sure how to achieve that.

Any help (however obvious - gardening novice remember ) very gratefully recieved.

At this stage I would be going round the trees and cutting avery stalk and stem with secateurs, pruning saw whatever.

After a bit, you can see what has died and what is still alive, and can trace the living stems and chop those as well.

By next year, the ivy will have browned off and you can start ripping it out of the trees assuming the trees are still living.

It will still be embedded in the soil and you are into drilling holes into ivy stumps and inserting Roundup or similar at that point.

Hmm, don't envy you that.

What I've done on a smaller scale (smaller trees, less thick ivy) is to kill the ivy off by cutting the trunks with a pruning saw at the base, and then over time, just go at removing it little and often. (I put a radio programme on my iPod and go at it for 30 mins) A daisy weeder can be surprisingly effective at getting the ivy trunks off the tree trunk.

Birds will nest in it come spring, so you need to work on it before and after nesting time.

So I shouldn't take it off now then? I have cut some off and pulled it away from the trunk.

Oh dear, hope I haven't done any lasting damage...

Aha, sounds like we both agree. I found that oddly enough, I haven't needed to Roundup - taking it down at the base with a pruning saw seems to have been a nasty enough shock to kill it.

No, it's absolutely fine to take it off now, it's just that we're suggesting a way that we find easier. Apparently some people prefer to take it off when it's alive, though, as they feel that taking it off when dead can trigger allergies.

phew! bit panicky there for a minute!

the trees are really beautiful, ones a weeping cherry and the other is a mystery but pretty and unusual so it is awful to think we might lose them over this.

The garden is literally covered, its all over the pond rockery, all the hedges, all the flower beds are carpeted in it and the trees have more ivy leaves than anything else. What should i do about the ground coverage? Digging out the roots would take months, is there any other option?

I've found that just pulling it up and taking it back to its actual roots has made a big difference. Then, if you like, you can put Roundup on the new leaves as they emerge, which should gradually kill it off.

At the moment, I'm happy to keep most of my ivy short and under control, rather than digging it out altogether, because ivy does have a lot of wildlife benefits, plus gives you green in winter. I had a long chat to a guy at a specialist ivy nursery who said that the problem with ivy is that it does need maintenance, just like other plants, and that people don't give it that maintenance.

If you take one area at a time and work on it, it can be very satisfying.

Brilliant, thanks so much for your help!

I will probably be on here lots from now on moaning about overgrown and half dead conifers and so on, its good to know its so helpful and friendly over here.

Is the garden quite dark and overhung by the large trees? That would promote ivy growth and kill the conifers.

Having the big trees cut back by a professional tree surgeon will let more light in and help you grow things in the garden next year.

Yes, the garden is full of large trees and conifers and so it is quite dark.

Aren't tree surgeons notoriously expensive though?

Tree surgeons can be expensive to take down a tree because of insurance and dealing with council permits etc. It depends how big your trees are. We rented a house with a garden that was overhung by trees. Just cutting back the lower branches allowed in a lot more light. It transformed the amount of light that came into the house too.

We did get a tree surgeon to prune upper branches and it was well worth the cost of about £250 for a full day. He disposed of the branches too for us.

Do be careful cutting trees, you may need a permit form the council if they are protected trees.

Saw through the Ivy and cut out chunks of it around the trunk of the tree which it is clinging too.

This will take you months, but do it little by little. When the Ivy dies it will be easier to pull away from the tree.

Dead Ivy wood burns well.

Grendesmum you are right about ivy, I've learned to love it and use it as a weed control ,I'm organic, on my cottage style mainly herby garden, the wild life love it!

agree with Lucinda - you need to saw through the ivy low down on the tree where you can reach safely. Then do another saw at least 6 inches above it and remove the chunk of ivy trunk between it. This will kill the ivy and over time (probably a couple of years) it will drop off the tree, or you can try gradually removing it. If you don't remove a section, then it will just grow back I think.

Leaving the ivy alive is not a good idea, as it will weaken the tree and make it more likely to fall over in storms etc.

I had ivy covering all my fences and sprayed it with this, it killed it quickly. Then pulled it all off. Actually, that's not quite right, I watched dp pull it all off!

The ivy is now mostly cut off and dying, but we have noticed that a couple of the worst affected trees seem to be very mis-shapen. There was so much ivy foliage the trees had very few leaves and seemed to be growing lots of thin whippy stems rather than proper branches. Do you think this will improve or are they always going to be lacing in healthy branches/leaves?