Advice on ivy clearance

dean-ahwzrh

Hi,

I hoping someone can help! We came into possession of a 30x20m garden that was like a jungle. Full of brambles, ivy and various other weeds. Last year I cleared to ground level, and applied several rounds of glyphosate. This seems to have killed off pretty much all the brambles and smaller weeds, but was only about 50% successful on the ivy.

We have a digger coming back for some unrelated work next week, so I'm wondering if a good strategy to remove the ivy and replace with grass would be to use the digger to scrape the soil over the whole garden to disrupt the ivy's root system. Then, through the spring/summer regularly apply glyphosate and/or hand pull any ivy regrowth. In the autumn, plant grass seed. Then, use a program of frequent mowing and applications of sbk brushkiller as needed until confident ivy is gone.

Any thoughts if this would work?

Thanks!

DampGardenMan

What sort of soil do you have? A digger (big? small?) can end up compacting the ground it's running over. This is especially true if you have a wet clay soil.

What do you intend to do with the garden when it's cleared? Lots of grass? Or lots of beds?

dean-ahwzrh

Thanks for the reply. We are in the North Downs, chalk base not clay. It would be a small digger, 60-80cm wide.

My wife wants to grass over everything for now to get the garden usable for our son in the next year or so. We'd then look at in-ground planting and raised beds later on once everything is settled, but I'd imagine the majority of the garden would be grass.

hogweed

The problem with using a digger or even a rotovator is that it would chop the ivy into smaller pieces each of which would root, thus multiplying your problem! Try and dig out as much of the ivy as you can, then just spot kill or gently remove any that shoots back up. 

dean-ahwzrh

hogweed said:

The problem with using a digger or even a rotovator is that it would chop the ivy into smaller pieces each of which would root, thus multiplying your problem!

Oh, I didn't think of that. Thanks.

Dovefromabove

We had ivy problems when we moved here  ... we'd moved in a week when the weight of rain on the ivy pulled a fence down

and the ivy on the fence the other side was so thick the size of the garden was seriously reduced 


We cut it down/back and dug the roots out



re-fenced and still our eyes open for bits of ivy making a bid for world domination ... at the other end of the garden was a marauding Russian vine ... seven years on we're still keeping our eyes open for that to reappear over the fence too.

Good luck ... with a bit of hard work and vigilance you can keep it under control 

Fire

Beautiful. Is the large blue-sih flower on the fence a clematis ? What is the large white in the foreground?

Dovefromabove

Yes, that's Clematis HF Young ... it has huge flowers.  The white flower is Hesperis matronalis 'Alba' ... the white version of Sweet Rocket ... the perfume on a warm evening is amazing