A’noon all. At the bottom of our garden we have a two storey brick outbuilding. The right hand side and rear are covered in ivy that has grown onto and into the roof causing leaks so clearly it has to go (only been in the place a few months, it wasn’t me that let it get into this state although why I let it go when looking at the place is something that’s worth getting flamed for though). Now I can’t access the majority of the ivy from our property because the outbuilding forms the boundary for the garden behind me and the garden that backs onto the side from the adjacent road (where the ivy has grown from) but I have spoken to the respective property owners and they are ok for me to gain access to remove it. I’d rather get the pro’s in to do it, I’ve already filled an estate car’s worth of ivy that I removed and you wouldn’t think I’d touched it at all.

So anyway, I want a proper job doing, my fiance wants me up a ladder shifting it all myself as a way of saving money. OK, I’ll never win this one so that’s what will happen. Told her how much work is involved but she and her parents reckon I can just kill the plant, remove what I need to from the roof and leave the rest to be stuck on the back and side, dead and unsightly. Not my problem they say as we can’t see it but surely the decent thing to do is to make a proper job of it and get rid properly? The ivy is growing from the property at the side so is not our plant but as soon as it touches our property it becomes my responsibility to manage and if that means removing the lot then so be it, yes? It’s causing a lot of friction at the mo as we can’t agree on what’s right to do. I’d rather pay to get it done properly (it will be pricey but so will the hire of two skips and the purchase of ladders, etc), they’d have me do a bodge job on my neighbours and leave all the waste on their properties as they can’t seem to grasp that it is our problem, not the neighbours’ problem. At the minute I’m at the “Kill it! Kill it with fire!” stage but to be fair torching my own outbuilding is probably not the smartest idea I’ve ever had (or the stupidest, mind).

Anyway, sorry for going on, but what do you lot reckon (first person to say “I reckon you need a script editor will get their shoes wee’d in)?

Cut it off at the base, wait for it to die, pull it off an take to the dump or have a garden bonfire. Worked for us.

Cut off it’s source, or many sources then just pull it from the bottom (wear goggles as loads of masonary dust/flakes will come off too).

Once you’ve pulled off to headheight, get a ladder and continue.

For the little stuff a sharp screwdriver of the like is needed to get under it.

Once all clear, mend the damage – at this point you’ll probably need scaffold and/roof ladders.

Or get someone in.

CHop it at the bottom leave for a couple of weeks, it’ll come off a lot easier

Wow. Your fiance and her family sound like lovely people. Glad they aren’t my neighbours.

Go round the building at ground level and cut through all of the ivy there. That will at least stop it growing any further and doing any more damage.

I’d recommend taking it all off properly. Even if you leave dead stuff on there it will still be fastened on / in the building fabric and cause more problems down the line. Do the job once, do it right. As for you doing it – get some quotes and price up how much a portable scaffold tower and disposal and your time is worth. See if it compares.

I had a similar situation with a stone outbuilding. I took a few hours one day cutting the stalks at the base of the walls with a variety of tools (secateurs, bolt croppers and a tenon saw) and left the plants to die back for a number of weeks, the leaves browning and curling nicely. I then spend a whole weekend pulling the dead bracts from the walls (prize if you could get an intact ‘fan’) and filling dumpy sacks before having a fair old bonfire with it all. Luckily not too much had got into the tiles – I left the stalks so as not to disturb the roof.
Satisfaction rating high; cost level low.

Edit – too slow; echo b r‘s post.
Top tip: rather than just cut, take out a 2-3″ section, then it’s easy to check that you’ve cut them all. Downside is that it adds to the time taken.

+1 for chopping it at the bottom and letting it die. You could speed things up with a sprayer full of glyphosphate a few weeks before killing it to allow it to soak into the leaves and down into the roots.

It’ll look unsightly for a while but then you can just pull the remainder off the wall and burn it in the summer.

Ask the neighbor for a hand, after all it’s their plant?

I did a completely overgrown shed (inside and out), once it’s dead and dry it’s quite quick.

the advantage of letting it die in situ and then removing it is hopefully the dead and dry branches will snap before they pull bricks/tiles/mortar away with them.

It will have loads of spiders living in it too.

Thanks for the replies, I know WHAT to do, I’ve looked into that and that’s the easy bit! It’s just getting shot of it all. It’s a big building with a LOT of ivy (gawd knows how many years worth of growth) so much so that it has become more shrub like over the roof which means it lifts easy but is harbouring all kinds of crap.

[/quote]Wow. Your fiance and her family sound like lovely people. Glad they aren’t my neighbours.[/quote]

They are, to be fair. They simply can’t grasp the fact that although it is not our ivy it is our problem. To be fair I didn’t think it was my problem either until I actually researched it properly. But yeah, this has caused some arguments.

Wire brush for the billion of little bits left stuck to the wall.
Lots of spiders!

I don’t mind spiders, if anything I’m feeling guilty in advance for making so many critters homeless. 😳

You could speed things up with a sprayer full of glyphosphate a few weeks before killing it to allow it to soak into the leaves and down into the roots.

I drilled a 5mm hole at an angle down into a thick ‘branch’ just above ground level, stuck a big syringe into the hole and filled it with neat glyphosphate.
It had been taken up by the plant within hours and the ivy is now very dead.
Much better than spraying onto leaves and hoping it doesn’t rain.

^drill holes and glyphosate (when growing – ie wait until spring), also cut stems. If it’s well adhered to the building (ie rooted into the wall/roof) then bits may well survive but you’ll get on top of it quite easily. I’ve taken several van-loads off our garden walls over the past year. No need to rush once you’ve cut the stems, it is much easier to remove once good and dead.

The killing of the ivy is the easy bit. The removal will be less so as I need to access two properties on different roads and can’t just chuck it into my garden for easier disposal, hence my wish to have it done professionally and my fiance’s/fiance’s parents view that I can just kill it and leave it. I guess the original question was a very long winded way of getting validation that my way of doing it (full removal, despite the fact it’s gonna be a bleedin’ nightmare for me to do on my own) was the right way rather than leaving it a dead, brown eyesore for someone else to look at/deal with.

I had a major plant growing up the back of my previous house. I cut the bastard near the root. I then went to the hardware store and asked for some chemicals which could kill anything by looking at it, drilled a shit load of holes in the visible root and poured it in. That was years ago now, and it certainly did the job.
I just pulled the rest off.

I did this for a friend of mine who had ivy covering the whole of one end of her 17th C farmhouse, and it was getting into the roof space. As others have said, I just hacked through the main trunk(s), we waited a couple of weeks or so for it to die, then just pulled the whole damned lot off the wall. Two story cottage, from front to back, so not a small amount. Hacked into smaller pieces, taken out the back and burned.
Simple, really.
This is her house, it was the entire left-hand side end wall, and creeping around the front, so a substantial covering.
Only needed two people to pull it off, I could probably have done it on my own, once it’s dead, it pulls off fairly easily.

AS above cut above roots and leave a gap of about 6 inches, wait till leaves turned brown , get a spayer , and fill with petrol, spray liberally all over, stand back and throw match at it, then film the results.

Get a goat. Buy the goat a ladder if needed. Then when the ivy’s gone, eat the goat.

old duvet covers are good ways of storing and moving garden rubbish which might help from your neighbours garden if you just want to burn it in yours.

Maybe the cheapest way would be to get a man with a van (who has somewhere he can get rid of it responsibly) who is happy to muck in with the job.

Getting a gardener/tree surgeon type people would probably be eye wateringly expensive.

Sheep love Ivy. Scaffolding so they can reach the top?
I actually thing that your other half has half a point.
Kill it now.
Wait a bit ( Let it go into 2017 if needed) until it starts to break up and then remove it. It will be shed loads easier to deal with as the leaves will be all brown and crinkly if not gone. Can you burn it on site with landowners permission?

Leave a few months after cutting stalks or weed killing before removing, it’s so much easier.

Methinks you are worrying to much. Take the easy way.

The easy way is not my style! If only. A man with a van type thing might be the way as my local recycling centre seems to allow them in. I’m all for letting it brown off for easier removal, the issues are surrounding the logistics of shifting it all and the fact that my other half doesn’t grasp that once I’ve killed it I will need to shift it, at some point. Thanks for the feedback everyone, I’m sure my other half will be delighted to know that she has been mentioned on “The Oracle”, maybe less so though if she sees what I’ve written…

It’ll take up less space dead. If you can’t get it out your neighbours garden easily, will they not let you burn up in theirs?

Wear Gloves, Masks and be prepared to still feel sick after handling. It’s a wee bit toxic.

Op. You seem to have forgotten that it’s your neighbours plant that is damaging your building – kill the ivy and leave it for your neighbours to deal with.
I wouldn’t be doing their gardening for them.