Fire - I’ve to do hands and knees weeding the ivy seedlings, particularly in the more shady bits of garden. I think the birds eat the berries and sit in my trees and shrubs to do their manky business, dropping the seeds. If I don’t get the seedlings when they’re young then it becomes more of a hassle to get them out. If left for a few years it would be everywhere.
Theres quite a long period when I can’t prune my hedge because I have a succession of nesting birds, blackbirds, chaffinches, wrens, hedge sparrows to name the most common and later on Willow Warblers that nest at the base. Lonicera is just too dense to spot them so to be safe I don’t cut from mid March to end of July beginning of August.
It probably is down to ivy variety though and I’ve just been unlucky enough to get some prehistoric, virulent, gnarly type.
At the back of the shed, I found some really sharp s&j shears i think i bought in Lidl a coup!e of years ago. I've been attacking. I'm about six inches from the fence. That'll do and hopefully, there'll be enough cover for anything that wants to lurk there when it greens up again!
For those who are worried, there's plenty of ivy elsewhere in the garden to get berries etc. The little blue butterflies have enough too.
Does anyone here grow the variety 'Glacier', and has it stayed well behaved?
Yes - I've grown it in a couple of gardens. Here, it's been in for about five years, and is probably covering an area of about a couple of square metres.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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Theres quite a long period when I can’t prune my hedge because I have a succession of nesting birds, blackbirds, chaffinches, wrens, hedge sparrows to name the most common and later on Willow Warblers that nest at the base. Lonicera is just too dense to spot them so to be safe I don’t cut from mid March to end of July beginning of August.
It probably is down to ivy variety though and I’ve just been unlucky enough to get some prehistoric, virulent, gnarly type.
For those who are worried, there's plenty of ivy elsewhere in the garden to get berries etc. The little blue butterflies have enough too.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...