I have English Ivy growing on many trees in our Piney Woods property, and I just love it. It has been growing on these trees for almost 30 years, and none seem to suffer, nor died. I don't know what Virginia Creeper looks like, so I don't know what I'd choose, but I am probably one of very few that loves my English Ivy.

we are not afraid, lol. it started in the neighbors yrd and does spread into our blue spruce and around on the ground. we started trimming the spruce a couple of yrs ago then the creeper started climbing up it. easy fix really, the last 2 yrs i have just used a garden rake to pull it down. since it comes out all attached to each other it is only a 5 minute job but needs to be done yearly. we love it, it creates a great privacy fence. i read a tip somewhere about creeper and ivy too if you are worried about it on your house. if you girdle or sever the stems at the base and let it die off, it shouldnt do damage to your shingles or siding when you finally pull it off.

Virginia creeper does not look like poison ivy ever, in my experience (5 leaf clusters), but I have had more than one yard maintenance person think even the full grown plant was. Really made me question their competence. Even young, poison ivy leaves look like poison ivy. If it is small, you can just yank it out of your pot. If the roots are well established, though, you may have to start over. I really don't know if any of the oil might linger on the surface of the soil, if not the new growth of chives (having discarded the growth present with the poison ivy) should be ok. I am lucky in that I am not sensitive to the plant since the birds plan it regularly in my yard. Good luck controlling the creeper. It is native here and really tried very hard to take over the whole yard--I would find that it had travelled under mulch and grass up to 30 feet to pop up in a new spot!! I had to eradicate it finally just to reduce the constant chasing after it--and that took the whole summer and lots of brush be gone (which also works on poison ivy)

I don't know what that is either but it is a small annual plant that I've pulled a lot of this year. VC is a perrenial vine that can grow 40-50 ft into a tree and develop vines as thick as my wrist. AND drop several hundred seeds a year into the azalea beds below. Some people call VC "poison oak" because it is a vine and the leaflets look superficially like poison ivy leaflets. But VC has 5 leaflets with a bit more serrating than PI.