Let’s Get the Ivy Out!

My favorite candidate for eradication is English ivy. One of the worst pests around, this pesky creeper displaces native plants and harms host trees and shrubs. It also harbors rats and other rodents, not to mention slugs. Out with the stuff! Whenever I write about removing ivy, I get questions about whether removal is really necessary. It is confusing to read that ivy is a dreadful invader and then find it for sale at your local nursery.

The confusion arises because ivy gets treated as both a wonder worker and an evil weed. Garden books written back East or in Europe sound ivy’s praises as a ground cover and a climber. Nearly every nursery carries ivy, often in several colorful forms. These days, however, many nurseries also post small warnings with the ivy, mentioning its wicked ways. In some parts of the country, gardeners struggle to grow English ivy and cherish the fancy forms for their horticultural cachet. Shouldn’t we delight in our abundance of ivy, when it grows so well here? Well, no.

The problem is that plants display different behavior patterns in different parts of the world. Back home in Europe, where ivy has been growing for millennia, it is well behaved. Here...