Ivy removal from house wall (help, it's out of control!))

[jonnyw]

I've realised the ivy we have climbing up the side of our hose is getting out of control (it's up to the eaves, and about to start making its way across a window).

I'm looking for advice (help!).

Having googled, I'm reading conflicting reports on the web. Some say to pull it from the top while it's still alive. Others say to cut it from the roots (or as I'm considering the level you want it to grow up to), and leave everything above it to die - before then pulling it off.

I obviously want to leave minimal scarring to the building if at all possible, along with wanting the least time consuming way of removal.

Has anyone here dealt with out-of-control ivy climbing a building? What did you do, and what did you find worked best?

 

[munchingB]

you want to do both-cut it from the top and the roots.

the young growth is easier to remove than the older woody stuff but it'll all have to come off so it doesnt matter which end you start although i would suggest start at the top before it starts crawling into your eaves and entangling itself in your guttering.

remove absolutely everything accept a little on the ground that you can poison with a stump killer otherwise you'll never get rid of it.

 

[JohnD]

you must cut all the stems emerging from the ground, with a gap to prevent them touching and growing back together. Look for a liquid glyphosate weedkiller to dab on the cut stumps. Do it a couple of times as the first lot might get washed away with sap.

You can then cut away what's easiest. It is quite an arduous job. In a few weeks the leaves will dry and brown. Leave it long enough and it will wither, rot and weather away. I find it easier to remove when dead. Cut it into manageable pieces rather than trying to pull it off in great chunks. If you take off the easy stuff first, you will be able to see, and get at, the difficult bits.

When dry, it is easier to dispose off, as it breaks rather than springing back, and can go on the bonfire.

 

[Mursal]

As above, strimmer with nylon cord run along the bottom and take 50-75 mm off each stem, it will die.

 

[Geometer]

Has anyone here dealt with out-of-control ivy climbing a building? What did you do, and what did you find worked best?

I used to work in archaeology, and more than once had to remove Ivy from standing walls with minimum damage. It's a horrible job; messy, fiddly and time consuming, and I had to work out how to do it from scratch. Eventually, I settled on the following technique:

You will need a largish pointing trowel (6" - 7"), plus a dust mask, gloves and goggles. If you have a large area to remove at height, working from a ladder is both impractical and dangerous, so you may find it worth hiring a scaffold tower for the duration.

1. Cut back excess foliage to within 10cm or so of the wall with shears or a hedge trimmer.

2. Sever the main stems a few cm above ground level.

3. Do not wait for the stems to dry out before removing them. Two reasons for this: a) Ivy is poisonous. Not dangerously so (Poison Ivy, of ill repute, is an unrelated North American species), but it produces dust which can cause irritation to the eyes and airways of sensitive individuals (hence the PPE above), and this dust is produced in greater quantity by old dead plants than fresh ones; and b) Ivy stems have little tensile strength, and this strength decreases in dead plants. Fresh stems are easier to work with.

4. To remove the stems, insert the trowel, with the blade flat against the wall, between the lowest point of the stem and the wall. Keep the blade flat, and slide it up and across the wall, working out from the main stem behind secondary stems, severing the rootlets that hold it to the wall.

5. Every so often, cut away the loosened stems, but try to loosen as much of the individual side stems as possible before cutting away, as its harder to get the trowel underneath a thinner stem.

6. Once you've removed the bulk of the plant, you'll find the wall is still covered with scraps of plant and the little rootlets. You can scrape these off with the trowel and/or a wire brush.

Hope this helps.