We heard 'e foolishly joined corkscrew climber? (6, 5)

Like most tenements, we have a "drying green" (never used to dry clothes, though) with a brick structure to contain the bins. Ours is covered with a 9in thick mat of ivy. There's lots of information about propagation online, the upshot being, it's incredibly easy to do.  There's so much of it growing at the drying green, I could easily chop away literally sack loads of it. There's so much, I wouldn't bother with rooting hormone or pots, just plant the cuttings a few ins apart in situ, round the boundary. A 10% strike rate would be fine.

It's a most excellent plant for wildlife. Here's a pdf document about that. I'm worried that it might smother the other plants, especially the gorse, but that could be managed with keeping it cut back in the early years of the hedgerow. Its thuggishness is another attraction for me: it's the boundaries of the plot which are now most liable to the persistent weeds: nettles, ground elder and horsetails. Ivy might shade them out.


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