Keep the heather. Why don't you use the same plant material that you have in the beds across the driveway. Reptition is more pleasing. Good luck getting out the vinca and ivy which I would try and divide some of the plants from the other beds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

I'd definitely go to the effort of removing both the ivy and the vinca. This is not a good situation for either and ivy in the ground in Seattle is just not a good idea, even when restricted in where it can travel, as it appears to be in this case. The hebes can be pruned back quite hard and now is a good time to do so. They won't look great for a few weeks but they are flushing new growth now and will fill in rapidly. In the future, a light trimming on a regular basis should keep them from getting too leggy. Same with the heather, which should be sheared back annually after bloom.

In such a small planting area, a groundcover may not even be necessary if you select other plantings carefully for size and spread and mulch around them. What you decide to plant is up to you but I wouldn't pick many different kinds of plants. A few that will remain in proper scale for the size of the planting area, offer a contrast in texture and form and provide some year round interest/color is all you need. And there's always room for a few spring bulbs, but maybe I'm offering that suggestion because they just look so appealing right now after our long winter and cold, late spring :-))

Thanks so much for your input. I decided to remove the ivy and vinca (or at least the bulk of it) and took out the dead/dying hebes and heather. Now what to do...some ideas:

-- cover bed in newspaper and bark mulch for the next several months and kill the ivy, then plant in the fall
-- use roundup and try and kill the ivy that way
-- try to pull out ivy by hand now and plant this spring (but someone said the ivy will keep coming back and when I go to pull it, I'll pull out the new plantings too)

Any advice/thoughts on the above? I'm anxious to get new plantings in there, but want to do the right thing and get rid of the ivy. +

Also, I was thinking of removing the yeddo shrub in the front by sidewalk. The ivy and vinca have completely rooted beneath it and I'm worried if I take care of the ivy elsewhere, it will just keep coming back. Also, yeddo leaves are spotted and the underneath, leaveless, due to the ivy that's been choking it. What do you think?

{{gwi:25766}}

I'd pull out as much of the Ivy by hand as I could. Then I'd spray Round Up...and THEN I'd do the newspaper mulch thing. Ivy is horrible and insidious.

Be warned...the first time I rid a bed of English Ivy I ended up with a HEINOUS case of Poison Ivy. I didn't see any, but it must have been mixed in. Now, any time I'm working in an area that hasn't been worked before...I assume there are PI roots...even if I don't see leaves. When I'm finished in the yard, I shower in cool water with Dawn for Dishes. (Takes the urushiol off the skin.)

Good luck! It looks better already.

If you keep the runners on your Vinca cut it will have a more bushy growth habit and less of a ground cover look. They produce more blooms too. Mine are about two feet tall, probably two feet in diameter and stand straight up. It's a little extra work but I like having it in certain areas because sometimes I plant annuals in those areas, some times I don't. When I don't I can let it go wild to cover the area and when I do I can cut it back and tidy it up to make room.

I've tried round-up on ivy with no real success. It stays in your soil for years too which makes me uncomfortable using it. I'm kind of weird about using chemicals in my garden anyway though so that is just a personal preference. I did however get rid of a huge patch of it in front of my house by pulling as much as I could at once then being diligent about pulling any stray pieces that popped up later. By the next spring it was gone for good.

round-up on ivy with no real success. It stays in your soil for years

Someone should look that up, because I have read that it is inert after two weeks. But the reason I would avoid Roundup is because of the Dogwood and the Heather you want to save. There is really no way of preventing drift when using that stuff. If I HAVE to use it, I use a foam paintbrush and paint it onto the foliage I want to kill. But even then the fumes can affect things nearby.

Good luck.

Two weeks is a little optimistic, even in ideal climate conditions, but you're correct, it - like most herbicides - does breakdown fairly rapidly. Expected soil half life is in the range of 45-60 days (Monsanto bumps it up shorter and rabid ecomaniacs tend to extend it indefinitely - detailed testing confirms the above). RoundUp does have foam applications which are immune from drift (unless you apply during very heavy winds and that is not suggested:-), however it is also correct that it is NOT very effective against English ivy. Ivy has a very waxy cuticle covering its leaves which prevents ready penetration of the herbicide. It is much more effective if you cut the ivy back and apply the concentrate directly to the exposed stem tissue. Fumes (if any - the active ingredient, glyphosate, is not volatile and doesn't produce 'fumes' per se) have no effect on plants - the glyphosate must make contact with foliage or other plant tissue in order to disrupt the metabolic process that effects their death.

In this small an area, hand pulling is not all that difficult and it would be my first choice.

And pulling is very effective. Elder Son pulled a bunch for me last summer...and very little has reappeared. I was joking--somewhat--when I said "I'd pull it out by hand, then roundup, THEN mulch." You know--a "nuke it from orbit" sort of thing. I forget that exaggeration doesn't come across in forums.