If your homemade ivy killer works, I'd suggest bottling it and selling it online - you could make a fortune!! Seriously, English ivy doesn't even respond well to heavy duty commercial chemical herbicides like glyphosate (RoundUp) or triclopyr so I can't imagine great success with vinegar et al. You might get some leaf damage that would appear on the surface to be a control but I doubt there has been much impact on the root system, which in a well established patch of ivy is deep, widespread and congested.

English ivy is a noxious weed in the PNW and its removal is an ongoing priority in many areas. Various methods have been studied and analyzed and it has been pretty well determined that the only successful way of ridding one's property of ivy is manual removal. Period.

btw, not sure where you got your 'recipe' for your homemade ivy killer but its effectiveness is going to be limited. Table vinegar is a very low strength herbicide that typically requires both sun and multiple applications to kill very common weeds (like dandelions). Its effect on the waxy surface of ivy will be very limited. It also has minimal impact on the root system. Epsom salts - magnesium sulfate - is sometimes used as a plant mineral supplement. It has NO herbicidal activity. And dish soap just assists with adherence, although with ivy's waxy cuticle, adherence is not going to make much of a difference. You need an adjuvant that destroys/dissolves or at least penetrates the cuticle so that the herbicide can do its work.

I've been using Crossbow (mostly triclopyr) and it worked pretty well. It did take some time and multiple timely applications, but it's made the rip & pull method much easier. I have noticed that it's much more effective when it's been dry for a few days, and remains dry for several days after. Once those plants are weakened, it makes the rip & pull method much easier.

I have thick, matted ivy, which crisscrosses itself over and over again, which makes just ripping it up all the more difficult. I hate the stuff. When I saw it for sale at Home Depot, I wanted to just spray the whole area with herbicide before it was released into the community.

Also- I have heard that spraying with dishsoap to remove the glossy/waxy layer before spraying with herbicide is much more effective than the herbicide alone.

"Also- I have heard that spraying with dishsoap to remove the glossy/waxy
layer before spraying with herbicide is much more effective than the
herbicide alone."

May work with some plants but not with ivy. Dish soap will not remove the cuticle on ivy which is very resistant to penetration. This is why even heavy duty herbicides like glyphosate or triclopyr require the addition of a non-ionic surfactant/adjuvant like Hasten or Scythe if used as a foliar application (which btw is not highly recommended for this plant because of the cuticle resistance). Otherwise, the painting diirectly on cut stem method works fine with these herbicides without the surfactant.

Since vinegar does not translocate throughout the plant (like the purchased herbicides referred to previously) and only affects foliage or topgrowth by burning and/or dessication, it will have minimal impact on a weed or other undesired plant with an extensive root system. The cut-and-paint method simply won't work. And it will have even less impact on an evergreen plant with a very resistant foliar coating.

IMO, you are pretty much wasting your efforts.

Home Depot now sells a generic version of RoundUp (glyphosate). The cost is less than HALF of what Round Up costs and works just as well. The surfactant may be even better. I double the recommended rate for English Ivy. It works, but it may take several weeks to take full effect. A second application is usually required to kill anything that survives the initial application.

Terry, the patent on Roundup herbicide expired more than twenty years ago. Generic equivalents are legion at this point, and have been for quite some time. Thanks for the heads-up that HD has a version. But this is far from a new thing.

+oM

Thanks for the info. This was the first time I had come across it at HD. I usually buy the 2.5 gallon jug, which lasts me several years. I was astounded at the price difference.

Oh yeah, patent protection is a big deal!

+oM

I've been working on some well-established English Ivy at my home for almost four years. I've taken a slow, persistent yanking approach combined with heavy coverage with oak leaves year round, and it has worked very well. the area I cleared the first year has remained Ivy-free. I've left the heavy layer of oak leaves and allowed Virginia Creeper to replace the English Ivy. There was also Lily of the Valley there, which I attack annually with glyphosate. That is also nearly exterminated, though both immediate neighbors continue to have the original mixture, so I will always need to remain vigilant. I think the smothering has really made the whole process successful. I had to be extra careful, because there is a beautiful patch of Trillium among the rest of the mess, and there are Trillium seedlings popping up everywhere. Also Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Solomon's Seal and I added Blood Root, Digitalis, Columbine and Dicentra. Good luck with your fight with the English Ivy. You will prevail.

martha

Pulling is my solution as well. It's been gone from the south and east sides of my house now for five years since I pulled the last of it. I still have some in the very back in the utility easement, but I haven't been too motivated about that part of the yard yet. Lots of Virginia Creeper down there too.

I lived in Oregon for a few years and volunteered occasionally for ivy removal projects. Most of these were during the wetter parts of the year when it was a little easier to pull. I remember one day in particular with temps around 40, down there in the mud near a creek pulling ivy -- really miserable except for the company of a couple of dozen other volunteers. Later we replanted the area with natives like skunk cabbage. In another area on a hillside the ivy had layered over itself into a thick blanket about two feet high. Ivy desert.

Two yards away a neighbor has replaced his entire shady front lawn with English Ivy. I wonder if he will regret it some day. I am glad there's a yard and driveway in between us.

I pulled it around here, ripped it out of a tree too where it had formed a trunk and climbed up to the top of the tree. Its not really that difficult, its shallow rooted mostly and can be manually pulled out with your hands and a hand spade until you get to the mother part, then just dig it out.

Ivy desert made me laugh woodstea. I think Vinca Major is worse, you get so tangled up in the ugly crap. My hatred of it gives me the energy to do the job on both these plants, its like a revenge thing.

Combating the “Ivy Desert”: The Invasion of Hedera helix (English Ivy) in the Pacific Northwest United States

We use ratchet loppers to deal with the tree trunk vines. We mulch ground areas profusely so the next year the vine roots loosen enough for much easier pulling. It seems over time soil can get horribly compacted by ground cover overgrowth, I am guessing because the surface vegetation soaks up and shuts out a lot of moisture. I suspect a recent history of yearly poisoning as a part of maintenance adversely affects all the microorganisms in the soil that would otherwise keep it fluffier.

Add me to the hand-pull crowd... Poison is harmful to humans...

Its a seasonal thing.... The nasty stuff pulls easily when the soil is moist, and not at all when it's dry... Means pull it in the winter... Ignore it in the summer, try to think about something else..

Of course, there will be lots of seedlings to keep an eye out for regardless of method used.

The one that slays me is the romantic notion of "The Ivy Covered Cottage" which is ever popular with those so inclined. I have heard this BS nonsense from so many people wanting just that that I really have to ask what it this wide world does that look conjure up in their heads? What is so wonderful looking about a plant eating your home to the point you can no longer decipher what color the bricks are?

On my block alone there are several Ivy Covered Cottages. These are the brick homes built in the 1920's and 30' here in the inner city. I have a stucco on wood home which would crumble under ivy, the very idea fills me with horror. I don't like vines in the first place anyway, they look messy and overgrown to my eye. like stuff that needs to be cleared out as underbrush.

Its an art form.

These guys trim the green monsters every year so the windows are exposed and the open space is square. They don't want it on the wood part up there by the roof so that gets trimmed yearly into a straight line. Sometimes things get out of hand, procrastination sets in and ivy misses being trimmed for a year, then two then..... It makes no diff to the ivy what it suckers its roots to, roof, wood bricks or that really nice look which I've seen so often----ivy growing inside the window between the screened storm window and the inner glass window. It looks really nice when they just cut it below the window leaving the dead stuff in there for years. Yes, I have seen this.

The trees are also Ivy covered. Well, maybe that entire trunk covered in these triffids is appealing to some but when that stuff gets to the top with no where else to climb its starts hanging down in a very creepy looking way. I suppose the bats love it and the squirrels can hang like Tarzan the Ape Man as they jump from one swinging vine to the next. Oh, and the stuff blooms when it turns into a tree itself trying to cannibalize the support tree.

I just hired someone to pull it out. If I keep at it, it should stay way. I had it everywhere and it went unchecked for years. But it just was too much for me to handle. So I caved in and found a reasonable landscaper to do the dirty work for me.

The problem with using any "home" remedy with dish detergent in it is you will burn the leaves but it won't harm the plant. So do tons of research on these remedies before using them. I've heard of this mixture before and I knew it just wouldn't work not for the long hall and not for what a bottle of a good organic weed killer could do. But Ivy isn't a weed, it puts out a root system from hell. The only way to make it stays dead is to get any pure weed kill find as many main trunks as you can and cut and paint the cut ends with it. It worked for me on Bamboo and some nasty tree stumps that kept sprouting new branches, but it takes years of patients that way. Hence why I got a professional in.

With poison Ivy I did use the round up for Poison Ivy and it worked wonderfully. I can't look at the stuff with out breaking out I'm that allergic to it. That was another reason for the professionals, they know how to deal with that nasty stuff.

Does anyone know the proportions?

Proportions for what?

They don't believe this in the PNW, but deer will take care of your problem in short order.

It's not a matter of believing :-) It just happens to be true........our deer do not like English ivy, period, end of discussion!! Boy, do I wish they did!! There would be a lot of fat, well-fed deer (not that they aren't already, eating everything else) and a whole lot less of this noxious weed!!

Over here, where Ivy is native and not a problem, roe deer will eat arborescent Ivy in the winter where they can reach it but appear to leave the vining form alone for some reason. It makes no impact on the ivy.