LOL!! If deer really liked English ivy, the world would be a far better place :-)) They may browse it occasionally but it is by no means at the top of their preferred menu and even if browsed, will do very little harm to this extremely aggressive, invasive monster. Just an FYI, but English ivy, Vinca minor and yellow archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdelon) are ALL considered invasive species in various locations across the country. It is always a good idea to check and see what is listed on your state's invasive plant listing before making a final decision.

I have a byard with over ten years of overgrowth, no maintenance, basically a jungle that is the top bank of a riparian cooridor. The ivy that was planted twenty years ago at our townhouse complex has broken loose and infested the entire byard, and creeping into the riparian area. I can't control my neighbors area, so I have taken control of my area personally by weeding out the ivy manually by hand. Then I got some wood chips for free from local tree company and spread about 3inches thick across the cleared area. I am planning to leave as-is for a while to see if the ivy cannot grow back up thru the wooodchips. We'll see what happens.

Docmom, I have sent you some messages via Houzz messaging system. I assume you have not received them? I am going to try again. If you don’t get anything, please see if you have emails enabled. Thanks! To see your messages while on Houzz (rather than / or in addition to email) go to the upper right corner. Click on "your Houzz". In the drop down menu, click "your Ideabooks". On a header on that page, you will see "Messages". Click on that and you will see any messages in your Inbox. There's a menu at left for Sent messages and Received messages. It took me a while to find this! ;)

I agree with Bill that simply cutting the stems & roots will not stop the English ivy from resprouting from the pieces left. Some of the roots can go deep into the soil & are ready to send up new shoots at any time of year (it is evergreen), if my ivy mass is anything to go by. I chopped up a couple of thick tenacious roots, then sprayed the cut ends I couldn't pull all the way out of the soil. Bill, my stone wall is not pointed; it's a towering heap of boulders that forms a steep wall on one side of my property. The English ivy has interwoven itself over the decades until it's almost a part of the wall. Chipmunks live in some holes between the stones (as I discovered when I tried to cut the ivy drastically) and I'm fine with them there. There may be snakes living there as well, and I think there are bumble bee holes?/dens?/nests in that wall--I see both in the garden abutting below the wall as I work in it. I'm OK leaving the ivy on the wall itself...but only if there were some way to prevent its spread to the garden below or the forest up top. As there is no guarantee of that, I wish I could eradicate it all without compromising the wall's integrity and the wildlife cozily at home there. So the situation of the wall has come down to a kind of an uneasy truce for now.....