What is your idea of garden décor? This month we celebrate garden decor and DIY green spaces. We want to inspire you and connect you to resources that you may not know about.
Why? Because growing plants are the antidote for our harsh urban landscape.
Plants and flowers, both indoor and out, clean and cool our air, support beneficial bugs and animals, and inspire us with their lush and complex structures. Plants are essential to the urban home.
Got a great resource you'd like to plug? Email us at editor (at) apartmenttherapy (dot) com.
Want to show off your green thumb and inspire others? Go here.
Deepa, ivy is quite a successful and tenacious plant. Shortly after you fix those trellis to the wall you'll have ivy growing directly on the wall.
Most of the reading I've found indicates that ivy won't damage a well mortared wall, especially one of recent construction. Older walls with already crumbling mortar can be destroyed, however. Dense ivy can provide nesting grounds and access paths for animals you may not want around your house.
How do I go about builing a ivy ( like the picture above ) in my balcony.
Over time ivy that's on your exterior wall will just completely ruin your brickwork and if you ever tried to pull it off it will leave unsightly marks that basically can never be removed.
It's very easy, just plant ivy plugs, spaced about 8-10 inches apart at the base of the wall you want it to climb and in two years it will be well started, climbing your wall -- BEWARE it's difficult to tame, goes under wooden eaves, onto the roof, brings with it moisture, insects which rots wood and, as well, it compromises the motar holding bricks together. My son and I spent a 10-hour/day weekend taking mine down and I had to use a hack saw to cut the thick roots that developed -- I agree it's beautiful, but
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR for it can be a pain!
P.s. We used a wire brush, ladder, peroxide to scrub off the imprint left by the ivy feeder roots -- not an easy task that that took weeks to get off and we never were able to get it all off. I suggest ivy lovers pot it in large terra cotta pots that are placed on a solid surface such as concrete, flagstone, etc. That's the method I finally had to settle for to get the ivy look in my yard.
Our ivy climbs onto cement stucco over brick. I've always assumed that if the ivy sinks its feet into the stucco it probably won't go deep enough to start undoing the mortar between the bricks. Am I right? or is this just wishful thinking?
Maybe an alternative to getting that look is to trail ivy or other climbers over a trellis that is then affixed to the wall?
Here in Boston, I am trying to grow Boston Ivy (parthenocicissus tricuspidata, as in the picture) on a 7th floor balcony corner wall with NNW exposure. The planter holds the 8 ft trellis (made from treated wood) against the wall. The planter is set up to have good drainage (potting soil over plastic window screen over marble chips.) The three ivy plants (which were $18 each) have been in the planter 3 weeks now and have been growning quickly. I have been "training" the ivy shoots to grown up the wooden slats with scotch tape, rather than laterally, which they tend to do. The ivy shoots send out sticky attachments, which I have been able to encourage to attach to the wooden trellis instead of the wall. I recheck the growth every few days and redirect it. This is not such a big chore, considering my only outdoor space is this 3 X 12 balcony!
Thanks for the info Max!