How do I kill the stuff for Petesakes?!? It won’t die!!

Anyone who has attempted to eradicate plants such as English Ivy can tell you, it can make you weep. There is a reason it’s invasive – it’s the devil to kill.

English Ivy – Green evil. It climbs trees and chokes them, smothers everything in it’s path, and it’s path keeps spreading. For this you must understand the plant itself. English Ivy has a protective, waxy coating on the mature leaves which keep herbicides from penetrating and being taken in by the plant, there fore killing it. You can spray mature leaves over and again and it won’t dent the stuff.

What worked for me is to go over it with a weed eater and chop up the leaves in order to encourage new growth. You don’t need to shave it to the ground, that’s far too much work. Just tear it up a bit and in a couple of weeks the new growth will start, you will see light, bright green foliage. The new growth does not have this protective wax coating yet so at this time spray with an herbicide. The herbicide will be taken in through the new leaves and kill the plant. It may take a few rounds of doing this! Try to do this in dry weather, a well watered plant is not nearly as likely to die as one that is weakened by lack of water. Spring or summer is the best time.

Depending on the size of the area you are working on, pulling the vines up is preferable. I usually wait a week until I am sure the herbicide has taken hold. If you pull up a lot of vines, roll into piles and let dry out before disposing of them. 1/4″ of an English Ivy plant can sprout and the whole thing start all over again. For an herbicide I found Ortho Brush-B-Gon to be the most effective.

Invasive Plant Resources

• Georgia Exotic Pest Plant Council -
• Invasive.org -
• Management Strategies for Invasive Plants – GreenSeattle.org -
• National Agricultural Library -