Bl00dy ivy/creeper on communal wall!! Grrr

longwalks1

We have a communal wall backing onto our parking space, and it's covered in an Ivy type creeper plant that pretty much consumes it all. Ive emailed and phoned the council several times to no avail, and even spent an afternoon out there a couple of months ago cutting it back myself but it just keeps coming back. Whatever it is it houses all sorts and sizes of spiders, something I'm not a fan off. Within a day they've spun webs onto the car and wing mirrors. Is there anything I can spray onto this creeper to kill it off (and the damn spiders too). We can't park anywhere else as spaces are limited, and I'm fed up with cobwebs within 24 hrs of parking up

Any advice greatly appreciated

somethingcorporate

Ivy is an absolute menace, we had to remove it off the back of our house and it is a horrible job to do. The best thing to do is to chop it off above the root - if it is old it will likely have more of a trunk than a stem! It will grow back but in the mean time all the rest will die off (over a year or so!).

The creepy-crawlies that live in Ivy are numerous, there were millions of spiders when I went after it last year and when we removed the dead climbers this year there were twice as many.

I don't think there is anything that you can spray to stop the bugs and killing it off is a (very) slow process. Your best bet is to keep on at the council. When they do act I have no doubt they will go in heavy handed and just get rid of it assuming it is not privately owned.

valk_scot

Does the creeper belong to you? If not then you can't spray it to kill it, you'd be destroying someone elses property and they might well be upset about this. However if the side where your parking space is belongs to you then you can trim the plant back to the boundary line, same as you could with an overhanging tree.

As for the spiders well, they won't cause any damage to your car and they're living creatures too. Bit mean to start exterminating them on the basis of simply not being a fan. It's not like they were destroying your crops or something.

Davesnave

It's just a car. Get over it! :rotfl:

valk_scot

I did take two vast ivy plants down a couple of years ago, mainly because they had completely overgrown a rather elderly brick wall and also because they were providing a convenient route for rats to climb in and out my garden. I waited till the nesting season was over and then started at the base, cutting through the thick stems and peeling it away from the wall. Then my OH and DS literally rolled it up and over the wall in huge sections, clipping any attachment points to the wall as we went. We stripped a fifty foot length of eight foot high wall in a day. It took twice as long to ferry it to the dump! There were a few pieces left still clinging to the wall afterwards but I took care of them with secateurs and vigilance. It was my ivy and my wall though, and my garden that was getting invaded by rats and my crops that were getting eaten, to say nothing of the disease possibilities.

I expect any spiders took the opportunity to leg it while the rolls of ivy were lying on the waste land on the other side of the wall waiting to go to the dump. I actually rather like spiders, there's a huge one in the greenhouse atm that's built a totally picturebook web across the doorway. Most inconvenient but I can live with ducking under it simply because it's such an amazing construction. My mum used to say spiders were lucky so I'm hoping some of this luck transfers to my surviving tomato plants.

dandelionclock30

Cut it down yourself and pull it off the wall. Loppers should be able to cut through the big root arms that go up the wall.
At the base cut into it with a spade and then pour in roundup. This should solve the problem.

lostinrates

I would check first the other communal owners are happpy to have this removed, and come to an agreement.

Otherwise you might find people helping spiders onto your car!