Just so you know it at least a foot deep maybe more at the deepest spots.

I haven['t dealt with quite that much ivy (thank God), but I had good result with mowing as low as possible, and then using a hand pick and a regular pick to rip out as many of the roots as possible, then dig down and get the deeper ones. If you can get the number down significantly, you can then use Ken from Adrian's trick of a drop of RoundUp on the "trunk) stump - that should take care of most of the rest. You will still have to be on the lookout for a couple of years, but you will reclaim 99% of the area. That looks like a bear of a job.

BTW, spraying RU on ivy leaves only annoys the plant.

I used a combination tactic - and let me just tell you, I had no clue how many rocks, tree trunks and random other stuff was hidden under the mountain of English ivy - dig up and move or discard the dirt from the excavation around the roots, at least a foot down and throughout the removal area; pull the small pieces and make cuts with a hand saw in the bigger ones; immediately upon cutting apply (carefully) either salt mixed with a bit of water to make it almost like a paste or roundup for woody plants/stumps; wait for the thicker roots to begin dying; pull out as the plant begins to make it easier by being dead. Whether you use salt or roundup you will need to replace the dirt around the area, which is why I suggest moving as much as you can to a ‘safe part of the yard’ elsewhere and discard that which you have remaining in the areas affected by the process with the treatment.

I did the flower bed areas around my patio when living in a SoCal townhouse and it took 6+ months to do it all on my own - the funny part is that the original ivy was planted at least 50 yards away. That stuff spreads in an unbelievably fast way, I will never not protest anyone planting it where my yard will be affected ever again. And I was lucky that it hadn’t started climbing the walls because it’d been planted as groundcover so the landscaping crew regularly took a trimmer to it to keep the height down - initially I’d hoped that the crew would do the removal but for those ‘exclusive use common area’ flower beds, it fell to me to do it.

If you use Glyphosate (the chemical in original RU) without any other herbicides and paint it undiluted on fresh cut stumps and cut vines, you won’t need to remove the dirt. It breaks down relatively quickly and isn’t active in soil. Read the ingredients and the label carefully. Anything that says extended control will remain active. No plant likes salt, so don’t use salt as it will create long term issues.

I had vastly better luck with the salt paste, and was fine with removing the dirt and replacing it after the removal process was done. I tried the round up and many of the times that I attempted to the breezes would start up. Being in an HOA with a CC&R section prohibiting permanent fences around patios, I had to work around things creatively and still manage to not piss off the neighbors on either side of me. The last part being key to avoiding any trouble from the HOA board that would likely have meant a full and permanent halt to any change I wanted to make.

Ivy is a serious problem here in the PNW and its removal is the stuff of legends!! You have to remove or kill ALL the roots for full control to be effective. My method (and one that is adopted by most ivy removal teams in this area) is to cut the ivy back as far as possible...just inches above the soil line. Then paint (not spray!) the cut ends with full strength glyphosate or triclopyr. It is pretty ineffective to attempt to spray the actual foliage with any herbicide, as ivy has a waxy coating or cuticle on the leaves that resists herbicide penetration.

A single application of the full strength herbicide is unlikely to be fully effective, simply because the plant has a very extensive root system and it takes time to kill off all those roots. So wait a couple of weeks after the first app to reapply. And be on the lookout also for any seedlings. Any time you expose the soil by cutting back the topgrowth, you provide better growing conditions for the seed bank!!

Thank you guys for all that info it's definitely very helpful. I figured I'd make a post of my progress so far.

By the way, does anybody on the forum live in Sacramento and have a herbicide license? If so I've got a job for you !

Hahaha you know I used to have photos on my iPad/iPhone showing the progress of my ivy removal process from the before all the way to having it fully gone from the flower beds. Once we moved from SoCal to Nebraska I copied them over to my PC and off my apple devices figuring I really didn’t need them accessible at all times. ;)

I just read a few comment's about herbicide that I guess I had skipped. At this point I've been just pulling and cutting back and then raking and cutting all the vines and stumps back to the dirt. Since I'm not licensed to use herbicides (California), they're goin to have to have someone else come in here once it starts growing a little bit again and apply the chemicals.

I've found that in the thick part, the fastest way to take it out is to slide a rock bar under the vines and then pry up, then cut the vines down low and repeat. It's working pretty well now and I wish I'd figures it out earlier.

And Gardengal, I used to live in Olympia so I've seen how bad you've got it up there. The Ivy and the Scotch broom as well!

Well I ended up finishing the project last night. It was at about 8 and I was so eager to leave that I forgot to take pictures.

Since it was a customers and they want it sprayed, I left most of the roots and vines that ran underground becuase they are just going to spray it. If it was on my own property I definitely would have taken more time to pull all the roots and hopefully over time woul've had to use minimal spraying or none at all.