How Ivy Will Hurt Trees and What to Do About It
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- Virginia Home Grown Host Peggy Singlemann, Maymont's Director of Park Operations and Horticulture, demonstrates how to use a hatchet to remove invasive ivy from the trunk of a tree while also protecting its vascular system from harm. Featured in the Tip from Maymont on Episode 1901.
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That looks like a great careful way of doing it! Thank you.
I found this response to another video and thought it was worth sharing.
Right, this is going to be long, but please bear with me, I think I have to correct what I see as a couple of errors. And thanks for posting: I love your enthusiasm and commitment!
Here we go: Trees are good at carbon capture, but very bad at sequestering it. Carbon sequestration can be said to have occurred where carbon is locked away from cycling in the biosphere - say in a peat bog in deep-buried anaerobic peat deposits or in a maerl bed locked in as calcium carbonate laid down by the maerl (a marine alga). Trees/forests capture carbon in their bodies and root systems but trees, along with their mycorrhizal associates (fungi) are extremely good at nutrient and carbon cycling, transporting oxygen down via their root systems where it diffuses out into the soil. If trunks and branches fall into a deep water body or a bog where they are preserved from rot, you can say that carbon sequestration has occurred, but standing timber in a wood, that's carbon capture. The amount of carbon a forest can capture is finite, limited to a maximum incorporated in the trees and plants at climax canopy; thereafter carbon cycles. The amount a peat bog can capture is far greater as the bog goes on accumulating layers of peat, getting deeper over centuries and millennia. If the bodies of trees are used to build and stay in place for hundreds of years, then I guess that is carbon sequestration by another route.
Also, ivy of itself, does not kill trees. On a healthy broadleaved tree with a healthy canopy, it remains suppressed by the shade of the tree canopy in summer, exactly as seen on your lovely specimen. It does the majority of its photosynthesis (and flowering) in winter after leaf-fall when light levels reaching it are higher. It derives no nutrient from the tree, merely using it to get a free ride up off the ground without having to put on the girth that a tree has to. The mass of ivy is excellent nesting cover for birds and the flowers (in autumn and winter) are an excellent nectar source for late-flying insects and honey bees. The fruits which mature at intervals though the winter and into early spring are rich in fats and are exellent for birds and small mammals when other resources are scarce.
If the tree is in trouble for some reason and the canopy thins, then the ivy can get away and increase the likelihood of wind-blow. In extreme cases it can girdle a tree with stems, but this usually happens in stressed trees with thinned canopies and very old, strongly-growing ivy. If this is a worry, you can slow it down by cutting some of the stems and keep some of its other wildlife value.
Ivy is an introduced species in the US (never a good plan), but this is another story.......
Do you have the vine Fallopia baldschuanica in the US? That one can kill trees by growing right over the canopy and shading the tree out... Hope that is useful.
I’ve got english ivy growing on an old silver maple in my front yard. It’s the only tree within about 80 feet, so there is no semblance of a forest canopy. I’m afraid the ivy is going to grow too aggressively and eventually harm the tree. What say you good sir?
Hello @@Goremachine Thank you for your question. A lot can depend on the size of the tree. I'm not familiar with silver maple. Can you give me a Latin/scientific name? Ivy won't latch onto very young trees as support because of the stem movement in the wind. The ivy will react to this stimuli and won't attach to any flimsy stems. Larger trees are usually capable of supporting ivy or any other climber for that matter. There may be occasion where the climbing plant reaches the crown of the tree and the climber out competes the crown for light. Put simply the climber produces a dense canopy of leaves over and above that of the host tree. Competition to photosynthesise then overwhelms the tree. This is however a fairly rare event.
Great video
If you pull the ivy off and some bark comes with it, should you cover that barkless area with something, and if so, what?
I just clean my trees🤩
Are they itchy?
There is a common myth that Ivy kills trees. Ivy on a healthy tree is grand and a big plus for much wildlife in UK. The bigger issue surely is that in USA as u shared English Ivy was introduced. It is therefore an invasive species. I would be very interested in a comparison of its wildlife benefits in the UK & USA.
Ivy does smother trees as tress do not breath through its bark
Axe? By hand, are u kidding? Buy a cheap electric Sawsall and some pruning blades, it’ll be much much faster.
Ivy does not harm trees, it's a myth that has been discounted by many botanists and organistations such as the Royal Horticultural Society!
People just like to believe misinformation