Kitchen Garden Forum

I am presently stripping my quince tree of the ivy that has been growing up it for the past 5 years and is now nearly at the top, some 15ft. Quinces have been rotting on the boughs, so I plan to give the tree a good prune and spray with Morteg or Amillotox. But to get to the point.. the roots of the ivy are deep down in the tangled boles of the tree and impossible to get at to dig out, or even cut close to the ground. Is there a herbicide that I could pour down there to kill the ivy roots, without harming the tree? Would something like Sodium Chlorate (I've still got some!) or other proprietary weed killer be suitable? What about brushwood killer sprayed on the cut ends of the ivy?
Many thanks for any advice.
John N

Hi John,
The way to fight Ivy is to train it away from the tree, so those you have cut to the ground allow to regrow but not up the tree place a stake into the ground and train it to grow up that. When they have achieved around 4ft give the Ivy a good thrashing to break the glossy surface of the leaves and then spray with Glyphosate. This way you should not get any Glyphosate on your tree and if you lay polythene on the ground around the stake none on the ground either. It may need more than one hit with glyphosate. You could also make a polythene cylinder and place over the stake and simply spray into the cylinder and leave it there just in case another application is needed. You should know in six weeks if you need a second application.
JB.

NO NO NO to Sodium Chlorate it works by poisoning the ground, so plants take it up from the soil they are growing in and die.

Your Quince will go as quick as the ivy from that.

BTW Sodium Chlorate was historically used as a path or drive weedkiller due to the persistence.

Hi John,
I was successful in killing a Rhus typhina (Stag's horn sumach) by drilling as deep a hole as I could down into the cut off trunk, almost filling it with a fairly strong mix of glyphosate and inserting a dowel to seal the hole. It killed all the suckers as well and didn't harm any surrounding plants.

If the ivy root is thick enough to drill this could be worth a try.

Regards, Gerry.