How can I get rid of ivy?
QIvy is growing all over the place in my garden and is very hard to get rid of. What’s the best course of action?
Patricia Gregory, Truro, Cornwall
AIvy is quite a challenge to get rid of and I think you will need a multi-pronged approach.
First, remove as much of the leafy growth as you can by pulling the stems off the ground or surfaces over which they are growing. Although they will root along where they touch the ground these roots are not generally very deeply secured.
Start at the outer edge of a patch and gently pull or tease up the stems – ivy does not regenerate from roots left behind, but will come back if portions of stems are left.
QI found three mice in a newly opened bag of dried mealworms – one was healthy, one poorly looking and one was dead. Are mealworms are poisonous to mice?
Penny Black, Diss, Norfolk
AWhat an unfortunate find! I have looked at various websites and as far as I can gather wild mice may eat mealworms as part of their natural diet, and they can be fed to pet mice as a treat.
Ivy growing up walls may be more difficult as the stems break leaving little bits behind. In this case it might be better to track back to the base of the stem where it emerges from the ground, and to cut it off.
Ideally, remove a small section of stem so that there is no chance of the two halves re-bonding.
Herbicide is going to be your best weapon against ivy growing on the ground as well, except that the most suitable ones to use (brushwood weed killers such as SBK Brushwood Killer) are non-selective and will kill all plants they come into contact with.
If you can remove most of the top growth of the ivy and then spot-treat any remaining stems and any new growth, this might be the most effective.
A question of mice and mealworms
However, they are high in fat and protein so are not recommended as a major part of a pet mouse’s diet – a bit like chocolate to humans, I guess! I wonder if the mice you found were quite hungry (hence being attracted to the bag of mealworms in the first place) and, perhaps weakened by a lack of food, were just too late to the feast to save themselves? Alternatively, perhaps they gorged on the freely available food and did themselves a mischief that way.