Oh, Hedera helix. It slides so quietly into the shady garden, the pale destructive fingers of its stems knuckling into every crevice and notch. I found it this spring, oozing through the back fence, into the flower bed. I'll have to rip that back, along with the tiny threads of proto-brambles already snaking across from the six inches of no-man's land between my fence and the neighbours' garages and sheds.
But the variegated ivy I see through the kitchen window, that's somehow worked itself into the shape of a feisty velociraptor (although maybe only for me - I see dinosaurs everywhere) is a tendril I cross-planted from where it grows over a dark, dark fence. This lights up with life and green, and that's thanks to the ivy - it's so dark, little else grows. But Hedera seizes every scrap of light and spins it into a home for spiders; wrens; sparrows.
Lovely, lovely ivy that grows where nothing else grows; that flowers after everything else has called it a year and rolled up into brown seed pods; that lures in pigeons for the Christmas treat of its sour black berries. Ivy that stills the air and traps the dust, making a warm space whatever the weather.
I love ivy. I've even bought ivy - a beautiful, miniature-leaved variety. Slow growing, I was promised. I didn't quite laugh in the nursery woman's face, but in all honesty all ivies grow slowly when they are small - and like the clappers when they are large.
And when that happens, ivy being ivy, it gets on top of you, and something like this happens:
Or worse; I lived in a modern new build at the turn of the century, with vigorous shrubs planted in the handkerchief-sized back garden including a vigorous variegated ivy that took apart window frames and invaded the loft. My neighbour is in that situation at the moment, and torn because he too loves the ivy; the butterflies that feed on it, the sparrows that nest in it. But it's thugging his place to bits.
The house I lived in after that one also had ivy, and there I took it in hand, with regret, because nothing is lovelier than overgrown ivy in October, buzzing with hedonic raves of dying bees and drunken wasps. But overgrown ivy pulls down the wall it has grown on.
So, the five rules of managing ivy in a confined space:
But the variegated ivy I see through the kitchen window, that's somehow worked itself into the shape of a feisty velociraptor (although maybe only for me - I see dinosaurs everywhere) is a tendril I cross-planted from where it grows over a dark, dark fence. This lights up with life and green, and that's thanks to the ivy - it's so dark, little else grows. But Hedera seizes every scrap of light and spins it into a home for spiders; wrens; sparrows.
Lovely, lovely ivy that grows where nothing else grows; that flowers after everything else has called it a year and rolled up into brown seed pods; that lures in pigeons for the Christmas treat of its sour black berries. Ivy that stills the air and traps the dust, making a warm space whatever the weather.
I love ivy. I've even bought ivy - a beautiful, miniature-leaved variety. Slow growing, I was promised. I didn't quite laugh in the nursery woman's face, but in all honesty all ivies grow slowly when they are small - and like the clappers when they are large.
And when that happens, ivy being ivy, it gets on top of you, and something like this happens:
Or worse; I lived in a modern new build at the turn of the century, with vigorous shrubs planted in the handkerchief-sized back garden including a vigorous variegated ivy that took apart window frames and invaded the loft. My neighbour is in that situation at the moment, and torn because he too loves the ivy; the butterflies that feed on it, the sparrows that nest in it. But it's thugging his place to bits.
The house I lived in after that one also had ivy, and there I took it in hand, with regret, because nothing is lovelier than overgrown ivy in October, buzzing with hedonic raves of dying bees and drunken wasps. But overgrown ivy pulls down the wall it has grown on.
So, the five rules of managing ivy in a confined space:
- If it gets above head height, chop it off.
- Check if it has got above head height every month in the winter and more often in the growing season.
- If it gets more than a handspan from the surface it is growing up, chop it back to the surface.
- Define its space and chop it back to this - cut tendrils, do not weave them back in, because ivy is very mobile and will head straight back to where it was before.
- Wherever it begins to thicken (on top of a fence for example), thin it as if it was a head of hair, by chopping out a percentage (30-70%, depending on the brutality of your haircut) of the tendrils.
Sadly, this regime, although it will keep your ivy under control, will not produce a flowering plant. There's a lot to enjoy in ivy leaves, of course, but if you want the full banana, you'll need to dedicate space (an old structure, a tall tree trunk, a shed) where the ivy can get up and bush out into some sun, and just deal with the fact that the whole thing will collapse under its own weight periodically.
I don't have space for that right now, but I'd definitely consider that part of a chaos enough garden. Last word on the subject from Kate Bush, who understands the lure of ivy very well:
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