Ivy

wendym

Wisteria is VERY slow growing - if you're going to plant one try to check that it's a variety that lets you enjoy the flowers. Ours flowers only after every single leaf is out, hiding the blossom very efficiently.

emiliah

We have ivy over part of the house - one side of the lounge window, and do need to cut it back, but at the moment it has approx 50 starlings and 100 sparrows roosting in it at night - so wouldn't like to make them homeless over the winter!!

How does Honeysuckle Cottage sound, if you don't fancy ivy?

charlies-aunt

Our cottage was built circa 1675 and ivy is the spawn of the devil!
Very picturesque but very destructive too.
Its okay if you have the time, commitment an energy to keep it well mancured - otherwise it's a 'mare

hazyjo

Mum's house is covered in ivy at the front. She now has to pay someone to come in and trim it all up ever so often. Bit of a pain, and if she'd had her way it would never have reached that stage. Dad always loved it though (and sis and I think it adds character to the house). I know she'd feel a bit guilty killing it off/removing it (now that dad's no longer with us) - plus the brickwork would be wrecked.

And, yes, it does bring the spiders in! :eek:

Jx

dandelionclock30

I used to have Ivy, a massive one, all along one of my walls, it was there for 30 years or so. Eventually my uncle pulled it down for us. We had so many woodlice in the house from it and the wall also had to be repointed.
I'd steer well away from it unless you want loads of creepy crawlies coming in. Spiders, mice, woodlice,slugs,birds, everything like that loves Ivy.

FatVonD

pimento wrote: »

Hm. Ivy or wisteria?

Is it wrong that I quite like the ivy one?

Okay, it has to go. I pulled some off at the weekend and there were no suckers left but there may be in the denser part but it's about a metre wide and to the top of the window at the moment so if there are any suckers I can put some trellis up and plant something and they'll be covered.

In the meantime I will train all the whippy shoots from next door's Wisteria across the top of the window.

On the subject of Wisteria... my other (non attached to us) neighbour has a lovely mature Wisteria and their tenants have cut it back to stumps. I would be mortified if I were the neighbours :eek:

hazyjo

FatVonD wrote: »

On the subject of Wisteria... my other (non attached to us) neighbour has a lovely mature Wisteria and their tenants have cut it back to stumps. I would be mortified if I were the neighbours :eek:

It can look quite dead/'woody' when it's not flowering. Maybe they thought it'd died! :eek: I used to have something that climbed (jasmine, maybe?) which looked dead every year. Had to battle with others not to dig up the damn thing. Next year, it'd be flowering again.

Jx

Tiddlywinks

You want to call your property 'Ivy Cottage'? What is it called now?

I had moved into a house which was covered in ivy and thought it was lovely... within six months I smelt damp which I couldn't locate no matter how hard I tried. I finally realised it was the ivy retaining moisture in the brickwork and blocking the airbricks.

It too two days and a couple of trips to the dump to deal with all the debris. The brickwork was covered in sticky raised 'bump' that were a nightmare to remove and worse still... the house got invaded by so many displaced spiders that it looked like a horror film set.

Never again...

FatVonD

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

You want to call your property 'Ivy Cottage'? What is it called now?

Number 43

FatVonD

hazyjo wrote: »

It can look quite dead/'woody' when it's not flowering. Maybe they thought it'd died! :eek: I used to have something that climbed (jasmine, maybe?) which looked dead every year. Had to battle with others not to dig up the damn thing. Next year, it'd be flowering again.

Jx

I think that's exactly what's happened!