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pocoyo_gw

Long term solution for poison ivy?

pocoyo
14 years ago

Firstly, I'm totally new to gardening. The southwest facing front yard has a downhill slope which is covered with english ivy (I like the look) and absolutely chock full of poison ivy (just terrible). Looks like the previous owner of the house let them take root.

I've applied roundup with good effect - the poison ivy leaves all curled up leaving the other stuff alive. After pulling out the dead poison ivy, what I'm left with is a denuded hill with very little growth on it. Now, I wasn't able to pull out all the poison ivy roots so I'm afraid the ivy will return if the roots start to sprout leaves that start collecting sunlight.

My question is: should I plant something like english ivy in the space where I've removed the poison ivy? Is there a better groundcover that I could use given that I really want to outcompete the poison ivy? Also, that particular hill gets a good amount of sun in the late afternoon so I'd want something that was very much sun-loving, but not only for drought conditions as we are on the east coast. Finally, when would it be the best time to plant over the poison ivy areas?

I recognize that that is a tall order and I've read _so_ many posts about how difficult it is to eradicate so I'm definitely prepared to be out there for a few years with roundup and/or hand weeding.

Thanks a bunch for your help!

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