Deciding the Fate of My Garden’s English Ivy Invasion

I will admit that I became fascinated with ivy this past year and now all throughout the hedgerows all I see is the ivy that is there, and I am torn about what to do with it. I convinced myself that the ivy is mean and is damaging the trees and the hedge lines and that it must be stopped, so I started seeing if I could do that. When the hedges were full, that was not too easy to get to the source. I have noticed that the ivy is quite ambitious and quite amazing actually, as it grows around trees, reaches across forest floors, and takes on the shape of what it seems to be suffocating like a boa constrictor. And then now there is a big hole in the hedge line. I also wanted to know how to easily add to the hedge lines, but that can be another post. For this post, I want to get some data to understand English ivy, also known as common ivy, a little more. I mean, it is thriving, so is it actually doing some good for carbon drawdown? It is an evergreen. Does it have a place somewhere? Let me stick with my observations and data I would like to better understand.

Ivy does look nice often, with pretty green leaves and how it grows up walls and buildings. It appears to provide good structure with sturdy branches and bundles which look good for the nesting birds in the hedgerows. Other weeds don’t grow there. So maybe that is a positive, but I also predict a future article about the potential benefits of weeds or what I call weeds, like my other nemesis the stinging nettle who has befriended me this late autumn during the rain. By the way, did I mention that I think I saw more ivy in the summer because we (okay I) worked on clearing a lot of the ferns, nettles, cow parsley. So did I contribute to the ivy growing more because it got more sun? I don’t know. I was not measuring that. Let’s keep an eye on it.

I have read that ivy is not good to eat but have seen sheep really enjoy the flowering bits. Who knew ivy had flowers? It kind of looked pretty and made me consider leaving it alone. We already know that I don’t quite have the data and tools yet to be able to measure the benefits specifically of ivy. It has to be there but more searching is needed. Well, I did not get to anything conclusive as I searched for specific facts to include in this post. I definitely feel it counts for daily green because it is about learning and trying to understand better.

Sort of related and just an interesting link:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8275562/#:~:text=Ivy%20leaf%20extract%20contains%20saponins,and%20antitussive%20properties%20%5B9%5D. This link goes into the medicinal benefits of ivy. Interesting.