Why you should allow some ivy to grow in your garden.
I do grow some cultivated variegated forms, ivy does not produce any flowers until their adult growth stage when the leaf shape changes, usually at around 10years. They can be kept pruned to their juvenile stage and leaf shape when they will at least provide nesting sites for birds.
Do you grow ivy in your garden?
I have ivy at the bottom of the garden but I do ot grow it as I have a fear of being overrun with the stuff. In fact I may be a bit paranoid about any climbers. When we bought the house I thought we were going to be overrun by an orange trumpet vine and I think it must have left me traumatised ;). Yours looks lovely. So I presume your cultivated ivyies do not flower. I never realised it took ten years for ivy to flower. The video is very good and I could see you have the Ivy bees as welll as the honey bees. Amelia
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We have ivy covering a section of fencing which gets covered in berries.
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Funnily enough I have just bought a small variegated ivy for a winter container. Although I have often battled with them, I love them for the wildlife.
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Yes we do grow ivy Brian although himself has just recently been in the process of removing a tree which was dripping with ivy and in flower. Sadly both had to go but I wish that he had waited a bit longer. We do have ivy growing in other spots too š
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Thank you Brian, a very nice video showing the mass of insects that love ivy so much. Some good shots of ivy bees collecting pollen after 1 minute.
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I have a similar variegated ivy, which has just started to show the adult growth. With your encouragement, I shall leave it to see what the flowers are like. However I do need to go out and tidy it up a bit, as it is growing in the narrow dead end strip at the side of the house, and Mr S was threatening to go out and chop it back. I just happened to list it on my SOS today….
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Plenty of bed and breakfast for bees and birds here, Brian! š
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