How to restrict the spread of a climber?
Syncopator
Posts: 2
We live in a semi, love our creeper, but it is constantly trespassing next door, and they don't like it.
I am reluctant, and no longer really nible enough, to zoom up and down a ladder every year to prune it.
If the branches, of which there are many, ranging in diameter from a few millimetres to a couple of centimetres, weren't stuck so tenaciously to the wall, I could perhaps bind them with something like duct/gaffer tape (like Chinese feet). The thinking being that without sunlight etc etc ..... but that is impossible to implement.
So I am now wondering if there is something in a can which I could apply with a brush, something which will effectively do the same thing as a tape might.
No idea what it's called, so I took it's photo.
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Posts
The only way to restrict it is to remove it completely.
Case of wrong plant in that situation. Your neighbour has a perfect right to object if it strays onto his wall. You say it is trespassing - it is.
That is Parthenocissus tricuspidata or Boston Ivy. I have it on my old farmhouse in France and I prefer it to the true Virginia Creeper which gets everywhere. It has a neater habit. But, I'm afraid, the only way I know to keep it under control is to prune it. I cut it every year at least 1 metre from the edges and from the roof. And more than that on the tall bit of the house, which means you don't have to go so far up the ladder! I have to admit that last year I got a young chap to come and do it, had to pay him but it didn't take him very long. I don't know if a weedkiller like glyphosate would work.
Glyphosate would kill the whole plant.
Drastic action though Dove, I hate killing plants, even when they are a nuisance. Always feel guilty about tI somehow. Just got rid a of a lilac that I had in a pot. Got hit by the late snow and frost, no leaves let alone flowers this year. I still keep thinking it could come back next year, but have 2 others, so it got the chop
Thank you all for your replies. I have the box ticked so that I should have been advised of them, but it hasn't worked
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Oh dear, I was rather anticipating the news, so I'm not surprised.
I am very reluctant to kill it, so I will have to bite the bullet and wield the Rollcut again as long as I'm able to.
As an aside, I became aware, some years back, that Rollcut anvil secatuers are no longer available. What a pity, the simplicity of design knocks spots off many (most?) of the fancy offerings we see today. In anticipation of some day needing a replacement I searched the internet, which coughed up a source in the 'States. The one I bought bears the hallmark of a penny-pinching accountant - the anvil is no longer brass but some sort of steel. Never needed to use it though; my original one is still in fine fettle.
The advising of replies doesn't seem to be working at the moment.