I had a yard customer yesterday who wanted me to clear ivy off a gentle slope next to her driveway. (she and I live about 8 spaces apart in a mobile-home park.)
I arrived with tools, including an electric hedge-trimmer, rakes, brooms, hand clippers, and so on. I cut the ivy (the part above the ground) in sections. The work took six hours, beginning at the edge of the drive (tenants’ access to their homes by car) and extended all the way back to the rear wall of the shed, I guess about 50 or 60 feet, and 7 or 8 feet up the slope. (I could not go any higher, because it was not safe to stand farther up the slope to reach the exposed ivy.)
Whne I started, I noted that the exposed ivy was a foot thick in places and some of the visible root structure was as big around as branchers of a small tree.
What kind of equipment do professional gardeners use to tear ivy (roots and all) completely out? The pro whio suggested I use a hedge-trimmer on the part above ground said I should use my mattock to tear the roots out… :rolleyes:
That stuff is a major bitch to get rid of. Sounds to me like you’re going to need a back-hoe or some similar industrial strength implement of destruction. I had a hedge of ivy in my front lawn (So. California) that was about 2 ft wide 3 ft high and about 10 ft long. I tried reducing it with electric trimmers, but they just bounced off the heavy vines, so I attacked them with a chain saw and then dug them up. The roots were a full 3 feet into the ground. I had a 2’ x 3’ x 8’ trench in my lawn when I was done. Yeah, your mattock will work, but pre-schedule an appointment with your chiropracter.
I got rid of the hedge, but not all the ivy. I stll have stringers of ivy coming up through my philodendrons that I continue to pull out years later. I’d have to dig them all up to clear the ivy roots.
Good luck. Gawd, how I hate that stuff.
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[sup]When you whip the ivy, I’ve got some kudsu for you to wrestle with.[/sup][/indent][/indent][/indent]