Subject: Re: [permaculture] English ivy on site of future forest garden
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:26:04 -0800
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.