I creep and crawl over everything as a vine,
Taking ten years to mature, just like fine wine.
My shape-shifting roots secrete natural glue,
Making my spread quite hard to undo!
English Ivy is a plant commonly found in gardens due to its sprawling, ground-covering tendencies. However, these tendencies are some of the reasons that this species is harmful to our local environments. English Ivy crawls over any and all obstacles, strangling other plants that it comes across. Unfortunately, English Ivy also continues to be sold in plant shops and garden centres throughout the Sea to Sky.
English Ivy is native to Europe, having been brought to North America as an ornamental. This species quickly escaped from gardens into nearby ecosystems, wreaking havoc on the native species. English Ivy is tolerant of a wide range of conditions and is very shade tolerant in its juvenile phase. Its mature phase, however, prefers lots of light. English Ivy can be found in disturbed areas, parks, and forest edges, or climbing trees, houses, walls, and fences.
English Ivy takes ten years of growth in order to reach its mature phase. Plants in the juvenile stage aren’t able to reproduce by seed yet, so they don’t form flowers or berries. Their dark green, leathery leaves have 3-5 lobes in juvenile plants but are unlobed in mature plants. Mature plants form tiny greenish-yellow flowers in umbrella-like clusters that mature into round, bluish-black fruits. The vine-like stems of English Ivy start out a purple-green but turn brown with age. In the mature phase, they grow thick and woody, reaching 30 m long and 10 cm thick. The stems produce rootlets that produce an adhesive substance to allow them to climb more effectively.
English Ivy reproduces only vegetatively in its juvenile phase, but both by seed and vegetatively in its mature phase. Its berries, which each contain 2-5 seeds, are dispersed by birds that can digest them. English Ivy can form new plants from any piece of stem or root that touches the soil and from its runners.
The ease with which English Ivy reproduces vegetatively makes it a prolific spreader. It escapes gardens and spreads into nearby ecosystems, forming dense monocultures that kill off other plants in the area. It overwhelms large trees, blocking their photosynthesis and nutrient uptake and adding large amounts of weight to them, making them more susceptible to falling due to wind. This species also causes severe damage to buildings and infrastructure and is incredibly difficult to manage and control. To top it off, its bluish-black berries are toxic to humans and animals.
English Ivy can be easily confused with its fellow invasive Irish Ivy. These two species share many of the same ID characteristics and pose the same environmental threats. Irish Ivy tends to be slightly larger than English Ivy and has flat hairs on the undersides of its leaves rather than erect ones.
Per SSISC’s Invasive Plants Priority List, English Ivy is listed as a species to contain in Squamish and is on the Prevention Watchlist in Whistler and Pemberton. We rely heavily on reports from the public to understand the current distribution of plants in the Sea to Sky and prevent their spread. With that in mind, we invite you to keep your eyes peeled for English Ivy and report any sightings.
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