Ivy - friend or foe?

[Rosamultiflora]

The area where I live has been overtaken by ivy. It covers woodland floors and climbs up many of the trees whether they are healthy or diseased. Views differ on whether it is helpful and encourages wildlife or if it constricts other plants and eventually kills great old trees. Is it a damaging interloper or a beautiful adddition to the countryside?

I think it's a foe, our hedge was being strangled by ivy which took far too many hours to remove from the hedge. Again in the churchyard we maintain its a nuisance for the grave stones and trees it's growing up - I appreciate it does provide berries for birds in winter but so do other plants which do not cause the strangling of plants in the same way.
To me ivy is like leylandi - if you plant it, you must be the boss of it or it will take over and be unmanageable

Well certainly a friend to birds and wildlife , wrens in particular who love to nest in it.For that reason I will always let some grow part way up a couple of trees and a wall in my garden.Birds are losing habitat at an alarming rate sadly.And actually just reading an article inGardeners World magazine advocating not ripping all ivy .Its not invasive to a host tree or structure and wont actually do damage as it has arial roots.But pull back a certain amount to prevent a tree becoming top heavy or too covered. I feel a bit guilty in butchering a load in out hawthorn hedge when we first moved in,and wish I had left some lower down as in hindsight I realised a wren was nesting there.

Ivy is also a really important last flower for bees, flowering when just about everything else has done.

Foe, especially for large deciduous trees like oaks etc, if they get overwhelmed by it. If they are smothered in ivy, they stand a far greater chance of being blown down in winter gales due to the sheer weight and wind resistance of the stuff.

I find easy to pull back if you don't let it get to the point it's grown too high and allowed to 'smother'.I can walk down our long hedge easily pulling back to about waist height every now again and leave some as a base cover for the reasons of birds, bugs and wildlife.