Ivy has I believed always been the scourge of home occupiers owners and gardeners. The plant seems to creep over walls fences and everywhere throughout the garden. Indeed a garden fence in the maytrees' small garden recently came a cropper through the sheer weight of ivy growing all over it and beyond.
Having tried some pruning and cutting down near its roots the plant seemed to thrive further. In any event we have since asked a gardener to fix the fence, the ivy and more generally the garden.
Many of the above thoughts about ivy, are according to reports this morning from an eminent person from the Royal Society of Horticulture, quite wrong. Apparently ivy climbing up house walls does not risk the structure of the walls. Furthermore walls covered with ivy apparently assist in keeping the insides of homes warm in winter such is its insulative effect. As for pruning ivy plants in the garden, cutting near the roots simply causes more vigorous growth whereas what is required is cutting of some of the branches to keep the plant in better trim.
Perhaps those giving names to their new baby girls have been aware of the virtues of ivy for longer than I as the name Ivy is now well up in lists of popular names for baby girls.
My late mother was named Ivy Ellen Jennie Hawthorne though tended to use her last name Jennie.
No comments:
Post a Comment