Creating an Ivy hedge

jhnbuckley

I want to create an Ivy hedge and am not sure what to put in place to allow the ivy to climb.
The area will be about 2.4 metre high and a length of about 24 metres.
At the moment we have leylandii trunks along this length, the leylandii have been stripped of all branches and topped by our neighbour so we are left with trunks only and need to cover the gap quite quickly to regain privacy
As it can get quite windy where I live, I have considered attaching chainlink fencing to the trunks (with neighbours consent)as a means for the ivy to climb and create a hedge but not sure if this is overkill and there could be a better solution. Any advise would be gratefully received before I purchase the plants?

Dovefromabove

Hello “@jhnbuckley and welcome to the forum 😊 
Ivy clings much better to a flat surface … it doesn’t twine around things like honeysuckle etc … so flat board panels would be better than wire netting. 

Redwing

Ivy will cling to the old leylandii stumps; how high are they and how far apart?

jhnbuckley

Thanks for your reply.

At the moment the trunks still need cutting to size so they are about 3m. There is about a metre or so between them. Issue is not so much covering the remaining trunks but creating a hedge that will bridge the gaps between the trunks, at the moment it is completely open between our property and the neighbour. Our property is also slightly higher than the neighbour so the hedge needs to be around 2.4m high when established.

The plan was to buy established Ivy plants about 90cm.

jhnbuckley

Dovefromabove said:

Hello “@jhnbuckley and welcome to the forum 😊 
Ivy clings much better to a flat surface … it doesn’t twine around things like honeysuckle etc … so flat board panels would be better than wire netting. 

Thanks for that. Is there anything else that would grow fast and thick, remain evergreen and not be sensitive to cutting back? Putting a flat surface up wouldn't be an option unfortunately.

Fairygirl

If you attach chicken wire,  and just poke stems through at various points, they'll cover it. They'll also attach to netting no problem, so if you were able to put some of that onto the old trunks, that might be easier. You'd need one with a small hole size.

Re putting in something else, that will be difficult due to the leylandii. The ground won't be very hospitable for getting anything established easily.
A photo of the site would help too 

jhnbuckley

Fairygirl said:

If you attach chicken wire,  and just poke stems through at various points, they'll cover it. They'll also attach to netting no problem, so if you were able to put some of that onto the old trunks, that might be easier. You'd need one with a small hole size.

Thank you for that. The idea was that I would run the chainlink fencing the whole length and attach to the remaining trunks. Seems like chainling would not be suitable and pretty much a waste of money. Some kind of netting may be an option.

Redwing

I think twining ivy through the wire or chain-link would work.  You could also leave the old stumps tall; they would be rigid and help the ivy establish.  You could consider interplanting with privet, which is evergreen and grows fairly quickly, or hornbeam , which although not evergreen, it retains it's dead leaves all winter until new growth begins, making a sort of screen. Whatever you plant, I would enrich the soil with compost or manure because the leylandii will have depleted it. This could be done by mulching, easier than digging out roots. 

Fairygirl

I've done it here @jhnbuckley

jhnbuckley

Thank you all, more to think about.

Much appreciated