Kitchen Garden Forum

I have recently acquired the use of a piece of ground (the garden next door) the garden and the building next to it where covered in ivy and as I do not use weed killers (not that I understand them to be particularly effective in this case anyway) I have been sawing, chopping, digging etc. The stems can be several inches wide, these I have either kept to burn or disposed off. I have however loads of leaves which are decaying on the ground and the soil that the ivy seems to retain around its stems and as the upper branchs are dying this is falling down (into my eyes!) I have stated to gather this and the leaves into plastic bags as leaf mould, is this a good idea? What do others think?

Angela

Hi Angela

I would put them in the compost. I can't see any problem making them into leaf-mould, preferably with other leaves, but others may think differently.

Alan

I've got two or three large leaved decorative ivy plants which grow quickly and regularly need pruning back. I always throw the prunings onto the compost heap to rot down. They're always mixed in with other stuff and I've never had any problem with the subsequent compost once it's all well rotted down. The leaves can be rather leathery and I think they'd probably rot down more quickly in a compost bin rather than in a 100% leaf mould mixture.

We always compost our ivy leaves (and we have a lot each year) because I thing they would take longer to break down in the leafmould bags.

Many thanks for your replies, there are rather alot of leaves mixed with this earth/dust. Hopefully this will be a one off as when (when!) the ivy is down there will be no more leaves. I have filled an Omlet food bag with some and will fill all available bags then add the rest to the compost bins, need to get another bin our are full already and we haven't dug potatoes or finished broad beans yet!.

Angela