Ivy not yet sticking onto wall!

stringersimon67

Hi, I planted this ivy over a month ago and have held it against the wall with tape. It's still not produced aerial roots to make it stick to the wall by itself. Any ideas please? Maybe it's not the growing season or something, or maybe the ground roots are establishing themselves first. Will it take much longer? Many thanks, Simon

Fairygirl

It isn't instant - it'll take months for it to establish the root system, and become independent of whatever support it had, especially as it's a tiny specimen. Then it'll begin to attach itself. It would have been better to keep a cane, leant in against the wall, for it to grow up initially. 

Most ivies take a year or two before they really get going, then they go mad. 

It's very close to the wall though.  

stringersimon67

I thought about a cane, but thought it would eventually attach itself to that rather than the wall. Wondered would it help if I cut the height, so only say it's a foot, or even 6 inches from the ground? Would certainly make it easier keeping it taped to the wall at that height!

Fairygirl

You can certainly use tape, but it won't magically start attaching in the next few weeks, so you'd have to keep re doing it. You could cut it back a bit if you wanted. 
It won't attach itself to a cane though - it'll wind round it, but once it's rooting onto the wall, you can either remove the cane, or just leave it in situ. The ivy will cover it over time anyway.   

Redwing

I once used tape to secure ivy to a wall; took awhile but it eventually worked.

You only planted it a month ago....in winter.  Patience is what is needed.

Fire

Give it a couple of years

stringersimon67

A couple of years to stick to the wall?! I was hoping for a few months!

Fairygirl

It won't take two years, unless something else happens to stop it attaching 
It'll take a couple of years to be of any great size though, as it's so small

bertrand-mabel

Whilst we have many sections of ivy around our garden and understand the wildlife interest I am not sure why you want to grow it up your wall. They are other plants that could be used to hide your wall and give interest.

Again not against ivy as we have so  much .

TheGreenMan

I think patience is the key here. I see that you also posted about this last month. Were you expecting it to have changed since then? 

In my experience it’s more likely to go up if you let it do its thing and go along too. 

I’ll go out later and take a pic but I planted one late last summer and left it alone. It’s already found its way to and up the wall as I’ve let it go along the ground first. 

Be patient. 😂