permaculture

["Mathew Waehner" <waehner@gmail.com>]

Thanks Paul.

I am actually in North Carolina- known more as "kudzu country", but ivy is
quite a problem here.  It takes over the forest fragments in suburban areas,
and it seems to weaken and sour the soil- as you said it devotes little
energy to roots.

The japanese sickle looks like a perfect tool for cutting vines, as well as
repelling ninja assaults.


On 11/15/07, Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I'm guessing you are in the Pacific NW USA.
> Ivy devotes little energy to roots, light weight grubbing tools work
> well.  I have often used a japanese sickle or hedge shears to cut an ivy
> carpet into long linear strips, grubbing while backing downhill,
> compacting a bolus of ivy underfoot which can be left to decompose on
> site -- once dry it lacks vitality.  Not much seed bank.  Come back
> through after a growing season and pick off the roots you missed in the
> first pass.  Don't count on shading out ivy by any means, even in the
> deepest shade it just crawls around looking for something to climb.  It
> is VERY shade tolerant.  1 grub with 2 follow-up passes should give
> control.  I believe it has become such a problem locally simply because
> no one tends the land.
> Some good summary of ecology if you can see past the 'war of the world'
> world view
> http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/esadocs/hedeheli.html
> Lots of volatile oils... and no local predators -- I wonder if there is
> a yield there... Any one know of traditional uses related to its
> stinkyness?
> As a child of the thickets, all our improvised 'man traps' used a
> innocuous vine of ivy as the tripwire :)
> Regarding successful sowing, in the PNW, it would depend a lot on soil
> moisture... toward the dry side of their distribution, bigleaf maple can
> be very hungry for water creating a drought shadow in its root zone.
> here's a native bigleaf maple forest template as a source of inspiration.
> http://www.dnr.wa.gov/nhp/refdesk/communities/pdf/acma-alru-pomu-tegr.pdf
> Paul Cereghino
>
> Mathew Waehner wrote:
>
> >I would appreciate any other suggestions for dealing with ivy, and any
> >insights into the ecology of the ivy.
> >
> >
> >
>
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