Kite, Rhizo's right about ivy's being difficult to grow indoors. Rhizo, before I continue, I have a question for you. Although Hedera Helix is hardy, are variegated types as hardy? English and Bostons even thrive here in IL, but I've never seen any variegated types, not in this part of IL..Boston grows on brick, but don't know if they redden naturally or from sun and chilly air. What do you think? Kite, did you want to grow outdoors or try indoors? Do you have a cool room? Enclosed porch, etc. The cooler the better. Variegated Ivy is a beautiful plant, especially types with deep variegation. But Variegated need more sun than strickly green. Low light causes spindly growth despite color. If you place your ivy in a bright window, w/cooler temps, 'away from gas heat,' ventilation, and spray the leaves daily, it should do fine. If the room is hot, dry and stuffy, Spider Mites will attack. In winter, water less. Don't keep soil constantly wet, it needs to dry between drinks, especially if your winters are always gray. I withhold fertilizer during winter, but depending where you are in Tn, if days have more sun than clouds, 1/4-1/2 strength will suffice. Is your ivy hanging or staked? Toni

I'm sure a lot of what I have to say is remedial to your level of experience, but have included some of it for the less advanced. Have you tried smothering? In addition to newspaper, which is not up to the task of smothing some of the things you mentioned, I use sheet metal when/where I can. If it's still not heavy enough, put a few cinder blocks on it. That's one of my fav ways to reclaim ground from tough perennial pests. I feel your pain about your list, I've battled all of those except winter creeper. Of the remaining list, metal would smother all with the possible exception of the ivy. It would be likely to be difficult to smother the entire entity with 1 piece, and definitely strong enough to exploit the seams/cracks between pieces. Cutting it off as low as possible when it starts to flower would help. The more flush with the ground any smother is, the more effective. The most common mistake is disturbing it before everything is well and truly dead. Using a straight shovel to chop around the smother area is also helpful, so you know nothing under the smother is still connected to anything able to thrive outside of it (and sustain roots under the smother, keeping them alive much longer than necessary.) For all of your list, keep an eye on areas not yet under control. Even if you're only able to battle an area with mower or weed trimmer occasionally, when you see flowers should be one of these occasions, to prevent those flowers from making/dropping the new crop of seeds. Also, learn/know your tree sprouts. You'll probably soon recognize 2-4 kinds of tree sprouts that occur often in your yard. The sooner they are pulled, the more easily they come out. Once they are too established to pull, baby trees are very hard to get rid of. Some trees are more difficult to garden under than others. I shall start no more gardens under maples or oaks. Life's too short to pull that many sprouts. My Mom let spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum) and asparagus fern (A. sprengeri) loose in her yard and you can definitely add those to this list. I don't like to chase plants, or 'keep them in bounds' at all, nor do I enjoy pampering/dividing, generally maintaining plants besides adding organic matter to where they are growing, so have evolved to a point where there's basically just shrubs and bulbs, some nectar plants for butterflies and hummers. The term 'ground cover is always a keyword for "will try to take over the world." Don't let these loose in the ground unless you really DO want to COVER the ground. Suckering is another warning term. That means an entity starts new versions of itself from the roots, either adjacent to the main trunk/mass, or sometimes shockingly far away. Passiflora vines can make suckers so far away, chills will run down your spine (what's it doing UNDER THERE?!) You've probably noticed the berry vines can do that too. At least they provide a short flush of very yummy...

You could cut out the brown parts, it seems like they're bothering you. Or you could wait for new growth to cover it up. If the weeds are grasses, use Grass-b-gone, or some other grass specific herbicide. Round-up doesn't work very well on ivy, you could try half strength on your weeds. It may leave brown spots on the ivy leaves, though. Get really close to the weed and try to hit just the weed. If the weeds are wild grape, Virginia creeper or poison ivy, half strengh Round-up won't cut it. They, like ivy, need several doses of Round-up, or 1 1/2 strengh, or Brush killer. Or hand digging.

In your climate, both should survive just fine outside year round. But it does depend somewhat on the size of the container :-) A larger pot size will limit the potential of any potting soil freezing.......not likely to happen (it doesn't in my very similar climate) but it could. I don't do English ivy as it is highly invasive in my area and is growing wild everywhere but I do have the Muhlenbeckia (known here as wire vine) in several containers as an accent plant and they have survived for years. IME, it is quite drought tolerant once established but again, that would also depend a lot on pot size.