Ivy growing up house

purple-smartie

Does anyone know of a cheap way of killing ivy growing up the front of a house. After months of my landlord promising to get someone out to prune it back it as now grown out of control. I cut it back from covering the downstairs window but its growing over the upstairs ones and its become so thick in places i cant close the bedroom windows fully and I have to trim it as it growns through the joints in the windows in the bedroom and it even manages to grow through the living room window when thats closed. if i leave it over a week it grows and starts clinging to my curtains.

The house is freezing with the windows being open and the kids had had to move out their bedrooms and with having no gas fires i have to have the central heating on all the time which is costing me a fortune.

Ive tried pouring bleach onto the bottom where it grows from but this has done nothing.

any help please as its beginning to look like something out of a horror movie.

cheekymole

I don't think there is any easy solution although you could try jeyes fluid. It would take an awful long time to kill it anyway. I would get onto the landlord again as it is his responsibility as a landlord to ensure he provides what you are paying for as a tenant. I would get on to the CAB if this doesn't work. Good luck...

cath-w

Might be worth pointing out to your landlord the damage that it is doing to the house to help spur him on. In one house we owned it was also out of control when we bought the house. We took a saw and had to cut it off from the base. The stem was over a forearms thickness. The ivy had started to lift the roof tiles and damage the pointing and it was also threating to bring down the telephone line. If you want to kill it then saw it off at the base and pull the foliage off. It may still grow back, but it will take some time.

larmy16

purple-smartie wrote:

Does anyone know of a cheap way of killing ivy growing up the front of a house. After months of my landlord promising to get someone out to prune it back it as now grown out of control. I cut it back from covering the downstairs window but its growing over the upstairs ones and its become so thick in places i cant close the bedroom windows fully and I have to trim it as it growns through the joints in the windows in the bedroom and it even manages to grow through the living room window when thats closed. if i leave it over a week it grows and starts clinging to my curtains.

The house is freezing with the windows being open and the kids had had to move out their bedrooms and with having no gas fires i have to have the central heating on all the time which is costing me a fortune.

Ive tried pouring bleach onto the bottom where it grows from but this has done nothing.

any help please as its beginning to look like something out of a horror movie.

Someone told me to just cut through the stems nearest to the ground, they can be thick so you may need loppers. The ivy then dies and turns brown and is easier to remove. Ofcourse I realise this does not help you with removing the high up stuff. It does however make it die and lose its crawling ability. It was really creepy once, my son (whos room was a tip) had left his window open, and one day I dared to go in there and the ivy had come inside the room! It was revolting.

BNU_2

cath-w wrote:

If you want to kill it then saw it off at the base and pull the foliage off.

Working in property management I would agree with the sawing off at the base, but do not be tempted to pull down the climbers until they have completely died back because the plant's suckers attach pretty comprehensively to your mortar and brickwork and may damage them if you pull them down whilst fresh and healthy.

Wait until all has gone brown and approach with caution - it will be absolutely full of spiders if ours was anything to go by!!!

Good luck.

blossom30

Hi , I stay in an apartment block and the old lady upstairs decided to plant ivy at her bin (to cover it I assume) anyway this was close to the building and eventually the ivy started creeping towards the building and spread itself over the ground . One day I decided enough was enough (it was October also ,the best time for removing plants and shrubs) I got a spade and started hacking at the roots of the ivy and the stems started coming away easily enough.My biggest fear was the ivy could have easily climbed the building and covered the vents for the gas emissions. The old lady should not have planted anything really as the building and grounds are communal, but I wasn't living here at the time and would certainly have opposed to ivy being planted !

BlueVinney

Ivy is a complete b****r, alive or dead.

We bought a Victorian terrace house found that the suckers of a long established ivy plant had grown through the mortor between bricks and was under (the orginal) wallpaper on the living room wall! So be warned.

We have found that cutting the stems at the bottom is effective at stopping further growth but the dead plant is still a pain. We cut a plant over 4 years ago and still haven't managed to get all the dead suckers off the wall, they stick like glue. Just have to keep working at it.

If the living plant is not too attached to the building you can CAREFULLY pull it off. The advantage of starting before it dies back is that the stems are quite supple and you can get long lengths off. When it's dead the stems are much more brittle and you tend to have to lever it off the wall in small lumps as it keeps breaking.

Looks as though you've got a long job.

robnye

when we bought our current house, there was an ivy tree at the front of the house, between the porch and the bay window, it had grown up the wal and had actually affected the windows and facia board,

when i went into the loft there where shoots running across the loft towards the back of the house......

we cut it off at the base and cut down as high as we could reach....... cos otherwise the live branches would have pulled the plaster of the walls.....

we have been in our house now for 6 years and it was only with having the facia boards renewed whilst having the loft coverted that we finally got rid of the remnants of branches still hidden.

Ivy might be nice to look at, but is a b@gger to get rid off if left to its own devices

good luck

innovate

In addition to what the other posters already said:

1. you can try to kill the roots with Glyphosate (be careful with it, it kills just about everything it gets in contact with.......but ivy may well require several applications)
2. to remove the remnants that just won't come off brickwork, a pressure washer may help. But again, be careful, the pressure washer might cause more damage, so just living with the remnants might be the only viable alternative. Never use a pressure washer on any rendered areas, the rendering will come off instantly.
3. pull out any new ivy shoots whilst they are young! Pull gently so you hopefully get the roots out.

Ken68

Give a care for the wildlife..no need to use poison...just cut the branch at the bottom (leaving a six inch gap) the thing will die. Then charge your landlord for the poison. :-)

Mr_Proctalgia

I too have had tremdous problem with the stuff this year, you can almost hear it growing, mine got into the sash boxes and split them! Some came right through the wall too. I cut out a foot of the stuff at ground level and luckily a lot of the older stuff came off as a huge sheet, it was full of old birds nests, spiders and god knows what else. It can wreck your house so get rid as soon as possible. I dug out as much as I could and as new shoots appeared I watered them with Sodium Chlorate. That killed it!!!