This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Getting rid of ivy from a cherry tree
we're moving into our new house soon and there's a lovely big cherry tree in the garden but it's covered in ivy and i really want to strip it right off.
i've not done this before but is it just a case of cutting the ground stems of the ivy and waiting for it to die off? i don't really want to go pulling it off the tree incase it damages the bark
0
Posts
great, thanks! i'll give that a go
Definitely do what Verdun said. We sadly lost a beautiful cherry tree with a wonderful bloom because of the english ivy.. I wasn't as educated in the garden then as I am now!
i'm guessing i wait until it dies off before i start pulling it away from the cherry tree? the last thing i want to do is pull away any of the tree as i don't know what the bark is like!!
Bear in mind that it will be an ongoing battle against the ivy, every year we have to hack it down again from somewhere, but you'll be able to keep it under control if you do it regularly.
There will probably be a lot of ivy which isn't actually attached to the tree. You can certainly remove that immediately. I actually found it easier to remove the thicker growth while it was live. It seems to hold on even tighter when it's dead!!
That is what I expected when I needed to remove ivy from a rendered wall. However, the stuff I removed immediately came away clean. The stuff higher up which I left to die left all the gripping 'roots' behind. I had to go over the wall with a wire brush to remove them.