Warring with invasive ivy.
After returning from a long trip, I looked at the backyard and made an unwise decision: This summer, I was going to work on decimating the insidious English Ivy, an invasive where I live.
Originally planted as ground cover by owners past, the ivy crept all over the yard, climbed the garden shed and the fence. It even crept up a beloved spruce tree, nearly choking it before its roots were cut off. It slowly withered on the tree and the spruce started coming to life again. Ivy needs to be carefully controlled but it is far better to not plant it, especially a non-native invasive type.
In the yard, the ivy had trunks as thick as a heavy man’s arms with iron hard branches snaking their way overhead, forming an unattractive canopy. Worse, English Ivy can shade out sunlight, weakening trees and stealing their nutrition. Rodents, snakes and pests of all kinds can hide in it. Dead ivy can hang overhead for years, because they are difficult to remove without damaging the tree they cling to.
I was now paying the price for being ‘too busy’ to deal with it earlier. I jumped off the cliff into a sea of ivy. Armed with a pair of garden shears, I spent hours cutting off as much as I could. After a couple of weeks, I hired two men who usually mowed the lawn to chainsaw the trunks, rip out the roots, lay landscape fabric and mulch. This would contain the ivy but it keeps popping up in unexpected places and constant weeding needs to be done. Which is what I’m doing this summer.
No hikes, no long nature walks, no observing wildlife. Just weeding and mowing down the area to kill the ivy. I expect to weed for a couple more seasons before I can even think of planting flowers or other natives in the yard.
The upside to all this is that I learnt to use a small mower, drill and a hand-held chainsaw, tools I never thought I would wield. I finally saw the yard clean and clear, corner to corner, without the ivy obstructing it. I can also greet my very nice neighbor across the fence without either of us having to peer through tiny spaces in the tangle of ivy or just yelling to each other due to lack of visibility.
I also learnt to balance myself carefully in the sloping yard, cutting away root after root, carefully trashing the vine in plastic bins since it can grow from the smallest cuttings left on the ground unattended. The trashed ivy needs to completely wither and die. I kept numerous bags of ivy out for the weekly yard trash to pick up.
And I learnt patience, as I painstakingly dealt with this invasive. For the first time in years, I was able to step into nooks and corners of the yard previously overgrown with ivy. While I continue to weed for stray ivy, the yard finally looks clean. Overall, it is lovely to see the results of my efforts, which will continue until fall.
