Dutch elm disease kills primarily American Elm, so this could be another species. In American Elm trees often survive to seed producing age, but later succumb to the disease. There are also disease resistant hybrids being planted and they may also be seeding around their immediate area. HTH Chris

Lawn weed, lawn weed! Yep! V. persica lives happily in one of the shadiest areas of my lawn. I pull the larger plants, but I'll never get rid of it. When I bought the house, V. persica filled the (self-assumed) role of groundcover in a neglected roadside bed of Rose of Sharon (now thick enough with Strawberry Candy daylilies that I rarely see speedwell there). The winter after the death of the Rose of Sharons, it made such an attractive groundcover that I felt guilty planting the first dayliles that spring. There is also thymeleaf speedwell in most of the shady parts of the lawn. The nasty stuff roots as it goes. I'll never be rid of it either. I thought there was a third type of speedwell somewhere, but it's not on my list.

If you are willing to use chemicals then try round-up on the ivy & a product containing 2-4-D on the broad leaf weeds. other wise the procedure you outlined will have to do

agree with cleaning out ivy.. which means selective removal of dead growth...but there is a story from one of my contractors.. he grew a vine on a trellis for 10 years to get it over the top..the vine was brown at the bottom and flowering on top.. his wife cut the vine at the bottom because she thought it was dead because it was brown ..and then it of course it died because it lost it's connection to it's roots. So..just mentioning we usually cut top down and some cleaning up may be possible but the way to make items look new is.. replacing it.