Ivy on old walls

[Carol]

I am contemplating my next job which will be re-pointing more of the stone walls in the garden. One particularly ramshackle part was particularly covered in ivy and I cut this off at the base last autumn and then used weedkiller to kill it off (I thought!) Although some has died off nicely there is still lots of new growth coming through. I have spent hours picking it out with an old kitchen knife today, it is growing through the whole width of the wall.
Will the growing stuff push out my new pointing before it is hardened and if so does anyone have any ideas to get rid of it?
Student son suggests demolition of wall might be best option which would also avoid repointing!

 

[Jon Maine]

We were totally covered with ivy on some elevations, when replacing lintels the secondary roots were right through the wall to the inside.

Firstly I cut off the main stems. That knocked it back well. However where it had spread elsewhere into the wall a couple of sprayings I think we used glyophosphate did the trick.

If you are not desperate to do in a hurry why don't you try spraying and then covering the wall with black plastic. This should have the double benefit of starving the ivy of both light and water.

 

[Schoolmarm]

The glyphosate needs to be sprayed on ACTIVELY growing stuff. Wait until decent leaf has grown then spray.

 

[Jon Maine]

Yes it does, we waited for the newer growth to show and get a reasonable leaf size and then sprayed it. Fortunately we had a full scaffold over the building letting it dry for 2 years so had time to achieve this and also it starved moisture which helped derail the progress of the ivy and budliea which was almost as prolific as the ivy.

 

[Carol]

So no quick fix then
I will do a re-spray later in the spring before I point. Have chatted to neighbour who is going to tackle the ivy on her side too. Hopefully that will at least weaken it!

 

[Pford75]

There is also a glyphosate based product called 'Ivy Killer'.....which is more of a paste than a liquid. The challenge with spraying ivy is that it tends to run off the shiny leaves before having the full effect.

I have been told by our gardener that mixing glyphosate into wallpaper paste or simply adding flour to make it a paste can increase the effect, but I have never tried this myself

 

[Schoolmarm]

So no quick fix then
I will do a re-spray later in the spring before I point. Have chatted to neighbour who is going to tackle the ivy on her side too. Hopefully that will at least weaken it!

Only spray when you can guarantee no rain. Use the finest spray and the least amount to avoid run off.
Make sure you wait until it is dead, then carefully pull/tease all of it out of the wall.

The roots tend not to be as good at hanging on when dead.