Could this ivy be killing my privet hedge?

Hi,





We have lived in our house for five years now and over that time, the hedge to the right and rear of our garden has slowly been dying off. About eight feet of the back and twelve of the right hand side have died now and the only thing we can think of is that the perennial ivy which grows there is killing it.





It is of the type that you generally see growing on trees, vine like stems with heart shaped mid green leaves and pure white trumpet like flowers. To be honest, I'm not even sure if it is definately ivy.





Can any gardeners out there give me any advice before it all dissapears.

Could this ivy be killing my privet hedge?
You don't have ivy - you have bindweed! Yes, it could well be damaging the hedge by depriving it of nutrition and harbouring pests %26amp; diseases.


It is a notoriously difficult weed to get rid of though!


Try a contact weedkiller on it - but be ready to repeat the treatment 4 or 5 times!
Reply:It sounds like the Ivy has become too dominant and is taking the light and nutrients from your hedge. Act now, before the hedge bursts into life. Get right down under the hedge and identify the Ivy stems and pull them out / chop them off as best you can - but ensure they are severed. Then try to extract the lengths from the hedge as best you can. You'll need to do this right through the year - keep pulling the Ivy roots, give the hedge a good 3" mulch with some well rotted farm yard or horse manure to suppress other competition. If you want to save the hedge then start saving your glass jars - when the Ivy grows back and you can't pull it out - then stuff as much as you can into a jar with a good strong mix of glyphosate weedkiller (Roundup or superstore own-brand) and add a few drops of washing up liquid which breaks down the waxy coat on the leaves and allows the weedkiller to do it's work. Put the lid on as best you can and leave it for 3-4 weeks. It's painstaking but it worked on my inherited Ivy-infested Beech hedge. If you find any large roots, cut off any growth, drill holes in the stump and pour in deep root killer, glyphosate or even just table salt to kill it. Good luck :-)
Reply:Yes, the darned stuff strangles everything. I'm still trying to kill some off two years on!
Reply:This sounds like bindweed. Very difficult to get rid of. Don't try to dig it up, because each little piece of root left behind will grow into a new plant. Get some very strong contact weed killer in a bucket, then unwind long pieces of the creeper and soak them in the bucket. After a few days the plant will start to die. You may have to repeat this after a few weeks.


I have never heard of bindweed killing off a hedge like this. If it is an evergreen conifer type hedge (leylandii perhaps), it is probably dying for some other reason.
Reply:The vine you are describing sounds like Morning Glory to me...but it's hard to know without seeing a picture.





www.flowers.vg/flowers/morningglory.ht...





Is this what the vine looks like? If so......morning glory is strong enough to over take a perennial or an annual, but i don't believe it would be strong enough to kill your privet. Privet is a very aggressive hardy shrub. If the vine is indeed Morning Glory, I would say something else is killing your hedge. Do you happen to have a dog that could be repeatedly peeing on them? Perhaps they are overgrown and out of room to grow....is it an area that stays wet all the time? Or does the area stay bone dry? There are many things that could be killing them and since you said it has started in the back and working it's way up....i would think it's some sort of bug or disease. I'm not 100% sure if mites inhabit Privet...I will do some research,,,but that would be my first guess.





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I couldn't get that link to work after i posted it...incases it doesn't work for you....go to www.flowersvg and click on flowers and then click on the morning glory and all the different kinds will be displayed...yours is white so click on the white one and you will see some nice pictures of it.)
Reply:Ivy can be a pest. It's growing on your hedge so the hedge is competing with it for light, water and nutrients and this can often cause stunted growth or death of the host plant. Cut it at the base and make sure you've got all the stems. Then physically rip it out of the hedge. the sooner you do it the sooner the privet will rejuvinate. Systemic weedkillers like round up will work to an extent but its virtually impossible to avoid getting it on the privet
Reply:Yes ivy strangles stuff.