Ivy (Ground)

[thom]

Originally Posted by Liberty Landscaping LLC Ok I have a customer that has ivy on the ground that they want "removed" as a meyhod to combat mosquito control. Any suggestions how to remove it? With chemicals and without Is this ivy growing in the lawn?

[Liberty Landscaping LLC]

Lawn care business tips

No they used it in a "garden area" empty beds filled with ivy

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Liberty Landscaping LLC
www.libertylndscpng.com
Woodbridge, NJ

[thom]

Originally Posted by Liberty Landscaping LLC

No they used it in a "garden area" empty beds filled with ivy

I have used triplet ,and surge herbicide to kill all types of ivy with very good results. expect to see results after 14 days.

[krzys666]

there are a couple of ways to do this depending on state and country restrictions.
1) only non chemical way is fire.
you need a propane tank with a torch, the ones they use for asphalt. you then burn the ivy with the roots. this is the best way.

chemical
2) q4 with silver tip. it costs me 120 per gallon. i use about 1-2 ounces per gallon depending on how established the ivy is. this is the best chemical but not legal in all states.

3) round up that you have to mix. use 8-9 ounces per 2 gallons. yes it is double the dosage recommended but it works great.

the best results would be on a hot sunny day.
with the chemicals you will need multiple visits.
spray when you cut the grass every week.
once the ivy starts to die keep spraying until it is totally gone.

[noworkgardener]

There are several kinds of ground ivy so the first thing to do is to recognize what you have. Vica is woody and the roots are fairly narely. English ivy does not set deep roots and is a lot easier to remove. Around here everyone likes vinca and most lawn care companies I have seen do not manage it with the lawn. This is easily done with a string trimmer.

I have just done a job removing the vinca where the customer wanted to save the tree it was choking and the plants. Then replant it in the woods near her kids tree house. She also wanted to repurpose the area where I was pulling up the vinca. I have learned several things. The only spray that would allow repurposing the area is one that would be gone in a few days like Round up. She was worried about the tree also. So I did not use any spray.

When transplanting dont plant too thick. The vinca comes up in mats so thin the mat out a bit before planting.

The other thing I learned is that, for weeding and edging, the sod cutter will make life easy! What a great tool. I rented this one on the recommendation of a guy at the tool rental place. I used it to put in a garden bed and weed another and did not have to bend down until I needed to clean up the weeds!

I was also concerned about the time it was going to take and at one point she asked me for a quote which she later decided I could not tell her what it would cost. (I usually charge $15/hour for weeding and remediation because I work alone and have no idea how much it will cost.) I have a price now for you guys but I will get to that with my bottom line.

Things that I have learned with this job.
1. Cut the vine as short as possible. To the ground if you can so you don't have to deal with the long stems which will log your tools. I used my string trimmer (i like square line for this) to prevent dulling my mower blades.

2. Use a sod cutter. I chose not to use a tiller because it might hurt the tree but I discovered when I was transplanting another reason not to use a tiller is that you will have to stop to take the vines off the tines many times and this will waste time. I also did not use a mechanical sod cutter but a foot cutter so I would have more control of what I was doing.

3. There is no avoiding getting the vines and roots tangled in the cutter but if you twist the cutter by the handle you can move the tangles out of the way and roll it back to where you left off with out bending or using too much time.

In the end you can use the sod cutter, a tine rake, and a leaf rake to do the whole job.

4. This is a 2 person job. One to trim one to rake material out of the way. One to cut one to rake material out of the way.

I currently have 33 hours into this project.
The area under the tree is 20ft in diameter and has the difficulty of spreading roots which is why the vinca was placed there to prevent mowing roots. There is another area that is smaller also and I ran into a bees nest there. (carpenter bees so they did not swarm because they have individual nests but they still sting if you make them too mad.) I need to make some more measurements to find out a good estimate of my time and the time a job like this will take. I will get back to you on that.