How to kill ivy

[ABirdsEyeView]

Hello all,
My garden is being strangled by Ivy - it's grown round and through the leylandii (having leylandii is bad enough without ivy as well), it's grown through the fence, everywhere really,
How do I kill it? Normal weedkiller doesn't touch it and o don't think I can just keep trying to pull it out - I need a 'kill it at the roots' solution

Longer term plan is to take the fence down and tackle what's growing there but generally I need something that gets into all the nooks and crannies.

Many thanks, if you are able to advise

I hope someone replies, mine is the same. Ivy is a nightmare, nothing kills it and trying to pull it up is impossible.

When my neighbour was overrun by ivy two men spent several days manually ripping and digging it all out.

If you rip out all of it, dig out the roots and rip out any regrowth fast enough, it will eventually exhaust its reserves and die.

You have to bruise the leaves for weedkiller to have any effect, but if it's that overgrown you'd be better to manually remove as much as possible first so you only have the base left to kill/deal with.

When ivy gets that big it becomes what they call 'arboreal' - basically it changes character and becomes more tree-like. At the base somewhere, there will be a large thick stem that has become like a trunk. You need to saw through that. All the stuff above it will die back. There will also be a lot that has run along the ground and rooted itself, and there isn't a short-cut for that. You can't put weedkiller on it all without risking the health of other plants nearby, so you just have to attack it with venom and elbow grease.

Previous owners of my house planted ivy. It's take over my fence. I spent 2 days a month or so ripping it out and cutting to the root. I put root killer on the stump but it's still trying to come back. I hate the bloody stuff. I don't know what the permanent answer is.

I have tackled two gardens full of ivy. And my conclusion was/is, that it looked better with the ivy! But just keep hacking it down at the floor. Cut out a slice of the stems. Save yourself the hassle of pulling it all down. Because it will just irritate your eyes. I'm tempted to make a feature of it. Neighbour has leylandii with ivy, just top the trees, and it makes a nice green hedge. Young ivy foliage is beautiful. There might be other climbers, but ivy is pretty good for wildlife, it's incredible at the end of year with the hover-flies. And the wood pigeons keep eating it until a week or so back.

Oh bum, I thought this was going to be about Coronation Street.

Cut the main stem. Carefully put a little bit of glyphosate weed killer on the cuts. Repeat until you succeed.

🤣🤣

Sorry to disappoint @TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

Thank you for the replies - it's slightly complicated in that I'm not entirely sure where it starts. I have a wooden fence in front of a chain link fence, separating me from the neighbours and I suspect it's grown between in a bit of no man's land, Olson o might not be able to get to the main base. I know ripping down the old fencing will help but I'm reluctant since I can't immediately replace it.

Damn, was hoping for someone to say 'buy X weedkiller from home bargains and jobs a good un!'

Same here @ABirdsEyeView - a home bargains job is what I was hoping for!!

I also don’t know where mine starts and was hoping I could just paint the leaves without damaging the tree/bush it’s through?

someone mentioned weed killer with glycophospholate but I don’t know if I’d kill the tree if I just paint leaves or cut stems?

We've got too much Ivy on out fences and sometimes working up trees.

We leave some of it - arboreal Ivy is good for nesting birds and the flowers are a great source of food for bees late in the year. But in places where we needed to control it we cut off at the base and a bit above each cut so we can remove a section to be sure we've done every stem. Then gradually the dead stuff can be pulled down (may be difficult if it's tangled in a tree). And then check and redo, pull out ground runners. We managed to eliminate it from the neighbours garage wall when it started invading the roof of it.

Brush the leaves with SBK, a 50/50 solution.

Thanks all. Seems like I'll have to pull out the stuff that's wrapped around the leylandii base (2 huge rows that make a border with 2 neighbours) and then try to find where it begins. Have a feeling the base isn't on my land - there's a bit of a dead zone the council won't claim and I know isn't mine. It's like a jungle in there!

I can definitely brush the leaves on the fence and hope that finds its way to the roots.
When would be the best time of year to do it - as much as I hate the ivy, I don't want to accidentally kill birds or hedgehogs or any animals living in it except woodlice. Those buggers can definitely go

There could be nesting birds in it at the moment, so it would be best to wait until maybe September. You can still cut off all the long annoying bits that dangle down though.

Thank you