How can I kill off ivy without killing the plants near the ivy?

Question

I have a TON of ivy growing all over the corner of my yard, and it has swamped some tropical plants, and is actually starting to grow into my grass. HELP! Is there any poison that kills only ivy?

Answer 1

No, sadly, there's no selective herbicide for ivy.

Ivy is hard to get rid of.  Its roots go down far, and its glossy leaves are resistant to Round-up and other herbicides.  You can poison it, but it's a right nuisance.  The best way to kill ivy with herbicides is first to cut it back hard, and then to carefully paint concentrated brush-killer or concentrated Round-Up directly onto the freshly-cut stems.  You'll probably need to do this a number of times before it's all dead, and of course, you'd need to be very careful about protecting your wanted tropical plants while doing it.

I'd give hand-digging a try first, if I were you.  It's best to wait until the ground is moist, so you have the best chance of getting up all the roots. Be sure to dispose of the ivy you pull up right away -- don't just throw it on the ground, or it will resprout.

I'm sure you won't get it all on the first try this way either, but since any method of ivy removal involves multiple attempts, I think I'd prefer multiple rounds of digging to multiple rounds of messing about with strong chemicals -- especially when the ivy is all mixed up with plants that you want to keep.

Good luck!  Ivy's a real beast, very invasive.  (Where I live, it is illegal to plant it.)  Still, if you dig it up regularly, eventually you should be able to get rid of it all.

A few extra tips for ridding your garden of ivy can be found in the article below.

Answer 2

put on thick rubber gloves and pull up the poison ivy because if u have kids or dogs that would be the best thing instead of waiting for chemicals to start working good luck :D