When I purchased this house ten years ago I noticed the back door neighbor and their wild lot of English ivy covered trees but never realized it would be such a problem.
All the trees in their yard next to mine are covered in English ivy. When ivy grows upright it produces mature stems which bloom and produces berries which the birds love.
The vines produce racemes of tiny white flowers in the Fall which in January ripen into black berries the birds attack in flocks. The seeds in the berries pass through the digestive tracks unharmed and are deposited coated in a natural fertilizer.
Along the fence and other areas where the birds rest and defecate, hundreds of ivy seedlings germinate in the Spring.
After several years of neglect this has produces colonies of ivy along the fence and around the bird bath.
I am going to devote an afternoon to pulling up these ivy plants and cleaning these areas soon!
About ten years ago I planted Holly Osmanthus (Osmanthus x fortunei) along the parking area on the North side of the house when I purchased the house. I love the holly-like evergreen leaves and the very fragrant white flowers which are produced in the Fall.
They keep their limbs down to the ground and it was time to limb them up as they were making it difficult to park two cars side by side. In ten years they have grown from about two feet high and wide to about 15 feet tall and as much wide.
I trimmed off all the lower limbs that were making it difficult to park on that area of the drive.
I did find two empty bird nest but I haven’t seen bird activity in that area this season so hopefully I didn’t interrupt any breeding cycles.
Now the entire parking are is open and I can also get under them to weeds out oak and ivy seedlings!
Driving through a neighborhood back from Cup-A-Joe coffee shop today I saw this yarn bombed stop sign!
Love it!
XXX
Arthur in the Garden! 