Round up will not hurt tree roots; it works only when applied to green, growing parts of plants. If you want to use Round Up to control Ivy, spray it on the Ivy leaves instead of pulling it. Wait about 2 weeks, the ivy should turn brown. Respray any ivy that is still green and repeat.

Most of the essential fibrous root system of trees and shrubs are within the top few inches of soil. I suspect that that is what you are seeing. Disturbing the rhizosphere in the vicinity of established woody plants needs to be done with care.

I agree with Rhizo that you need to be aware of the tree roots that are close to the surface when pulling out your weeds but leaving ivy in place is also not very good for the tree. I haven't had much luck using herbicide on ivy and I am impatient so I usually opt for ripping it out with my hands. By the way, Roundup won't do anything on soil, to work it needs to hit some green parts of the plant. It isn't hard to rip up ivy since it does not root deeply. I have ripped out a lot of ivy and managed to not injure the adjacent trees. Follow up every few weeks in case you missed some and some resprouts. Check out www.noivyleague.com for some ivy removal tips.

Here is a link that might be useful: No Ivy League

I read once that, if you want to remove Poison ivy, you should put transparent plastic on the top of the plant. You put gloves that you will throw after and you grab the part of the plant closest to the ground over the plastic and you pull it back slowly to prevent the stem to break and release the toxic oil. After, you must get rid of this plant carefully without touching it and you remove your gloves like a doctor.

I am in the process of getting rid of alot of ivy..climbing up trees etc. I think the only way is to pull it. then keep pulling up anything that comes back. The stems of the ivy climbling up the trees were 3 inches or more. Then it blooms end of summer and reseeds all over. it is a terrible invasive...so you are smart to begin gettting rid of it now. I have heard that PI will only be affected by spraying the older dull leaves with roundup (concentrated) not the new shiny leaves. Good luck with your new woodland garden. you should not have to amend the soil too much in your setting...try Rhododendrons, Skimmia, Corylopsis, Hamamelis, Kalmia, Azaleas, Clethra, Viburnums, Piers, Hydrangeas, Callicarpa, Cornus, Enkianthus, Fothergilla, Mahonia, Ilex, Calycanthus, Itea.

Thanks for the help....I'll send some pics when I'm done. I'm already half way thru the ivy and it looks great.... I discovered what I think are woodland roses...Do these guys bloom ever ?

Make sure it isn't multiflora rose, or you'll want to remove it too. All roses bloom.
Your soil is good if it is full of roots, at least for what ever plant sent it's roots there.
What kind of trees and what kind of soil do you have???. This helps a lot with plant suggestions. You must replace the ivy with something, or nature will replace it with something...probably more ivy. "Poison ivy" is NOT poisonous. Roughly half of the population (it varies widely depending on who's statistics you look at)is allergic to it. Birds and other animals eat the berries and spread ivy in their droppings. The birds in your trees will constantly reseed your property. That's why you need plants and mulch to keep them from establishing over and over again.

Ziggy

After you get rid of the ivy, the easiest way to prepare a large area of woodland soil is to mulch heavily in the fall with fallen leaves. I would mulch only areas where most of the ivy is dead, and mulch really thickly - 3 feet of leaves isn't too much. You'll be hauling in leaves from the nieghborhood for this. By the middle of the next summer the leaves will be largely broken down and you can plant woodland natives. The easiest way to plant potted plants is to find a general area where you want to put the plant then poke around with a shovel to find a place where you can dig without hitting large roots. Digging a few holes under a tree won't hurt the tree. Wholesale turning of the soil under a tree definitely could hurt the tree.

The list of natives that might work is too long to mention. I would try to find woods that seem similar in your area (same types of trees, same amount of shade, similar soil) and find natives there that seem to grow well, and then plant the same species.

We had TONS of vines and ivy growing thruout our property when we moved in a year and a half ago...some of the stems were literally 6 inches thick, and the vines were coating our trees. (It's a one acre woodland property that the previous owners had totally neglected for 15 years)

At first I was just cutting them down and pulling them out, but they'd just resprout. Just spraying them with Round Up/Brush Killer/etc did not have much effect.
I finally had success by cutting them and immediatly soaking the cut tip with Round Up...I used the concentrated formula but mixed it stronger then the recommendations. It's worked very well for me.

Q: "How do I dig a hole for my plant and prep the soil when I want to plant something ?? The soil has a lot of dead roots and is not very good.."

A: whenever I bought nursery plants they always want you to dig a large hole, add amendments, fill in around the plant. Somewhere I read it is better to use a slit trench for most wild plantings (unless you have a big root ball) and don't bother with amendments.

Use a shovel with a long handle. Step down on the shovel so it goes in at least a few inches. If you can't get past roots, move your shovel over or you will have to damage roots to plant there.

Put both feet on the shovel if you have to, hold onto the handle and lean back using your body weight to tip the shovel back. This opens up a slit in the ground. Leaving the shovel in the slit, slide the plant into the slit. Pull out the shovel and tamp the slit closed around the plant.

This way you don't have to clear the ground. The plants surrounding your new planting will keep the soil from drying out as it would if you had cleared down to bare dirt.

If the planting needs to stay moist, pile mulch like leaves or cuttings around the planting right over the existing neighbors. The mulch will slow down the neighbors while your plant catches up. It is a competitive world.

If you dig a big hole the new planting will be surrounded by bare dirt which invites the worst invasives to move in and choke your planting.

I planted 25 bare root shrubs this way and it worked great.

It is a good way to insert wildflowers without disturbing the setting. I put young tree seedlngs between a mass of huge older tree roots. If you can get the shovel in deep enough to hold the plant, there should be enough soil there to use until it sets out deeper roots. My new elms and mulberries are doing great there