We recently bought our house, and a retaining wall separates our back yard from our neighbor's yard below. We had to replace our fence, because English Ivy had taken it over and was weighing it down. We had to take a chainsaw to the vine to cut it back.
My question is what is the best way to get rid of it? The roots are growing into the retaining wall on our neighbor's side so I cannot pull it. I know a regular weed killer will not do and there is so much of it. I do not want it to come back and ruin our new fence. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Hardiness Zone: 7b
By Kristen from Bellingham, WA
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Pour gas on it, good luck.
We cut all along the bottom of the plant (quite an expanse) and pulled off what we could. We left the rest to wither and die. We then had to dig out the roots:-(( Hard work, I'm afraid!
Ok, I did a test 4 weeks ago and I spent a couple hundred dollars on all kinds of products and mapped out the spray areas and documented the results. I have a huge area of english ivy. The best , fastest, and permanent solution was a back hoe. But the next best was Roundup for Poison Ivy and brush. I dosed it double dose and then 2 weeks later came back and repeated it. But I still have to get it out of there so I'll be back to the backhoe since I just have too much to pull up.
I spent less on the backhoe guy to come up than I did on the poisons. So there's the results of my scientific experiment. Next time I am going to rent a mini excavator for $175.00 a day and rip the rest of it out for less than the chemicals! By the way no other chemicals or other solutions I tried such as Ortho for brush, vinegar, Borax, crossbow, or Ortho Max worked. They all failed miserably. Roundup for Poison Ivy has a surfacent to break down the water molecules which makes it easier to absorb into the waxy leaf. Hope that helps.
I MOVED INTO AN OLD ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO AND I HAVE HUGE AMOUNTS OF OLD WELL ESTABLISHED ENGLISH IVY COMING OVER MY 2 FT BRICK RETAINING WALL. I PRINTED OFF INFORMATION ABOUT IT BEING A SEVER THREATING EVASIVE PLANT IN S.C. AND GAVE IT TO MY NEIGHBORS. THEY TRIMMED IT UP SOMEWHAT BUT I STILL HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT ON MY SIDE BECAUSE IT HAS TAKEN OVER A LARGE PART OF MY BACKYARD AND HAS ENGULFED MY FLOWERS AND FLOWERING SHRUBS.
Cut back ivy leaves with a weed-eater and then spray a 25% solution of glyphosate (roundup) directly onto the cut leaf and stems of the ivy. Glyphosate will kill anything it comes in contact with so be sure not to spray anything you want to keep. This is pretty effective . Nothing is 100%. A follow up spray on new growth as it emerges and gets a couple of leaves and also some hand removal of remaining root mass would do best. This will work anytime of year . So you could wait until the stuff you like is dormant to reduce inadvertent damage to desirables.
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