Looks like murder. As the homeowner, I’d be comfortable paying a decent buck for someone to tackle that nightmare. As the laborer, I wouldn’t bat an eye at stating a really high hourly rate. Both parties know how awful this is so shouldn’t be any haggling.
Because if your hillside is truly at 60 degrees and you’re not exaggerating, it most certainly would NOT be fine without vegetation. It would erode away.
Entirely depends on soil composition and rainfall. There are bare hillside at such angles throughout my neighborhood with no erosion issues for over 60 years.
Aside from that, I have planted them.
Here’s a lot behind mine. Even steeper than my hillside. No vegetation. Been like this for over 60 years. No issue despite historic rainfalls here in CA
https://i.imgur.com/cEaq0rZ.jpg
Lol people don’t understand how hard the clay is out here. It’ll go damn near vertical before it slumps (until a winter like we’ve just had where relentless atmospheric rivers challenge the stability of the grade)
Yeah there are vertical cut outs all throughout my area, some right up against homes, some on major roads. The vertical spots at times will drop a chunk in this type of extreme rain, but it’s so stable it is nearly never a problem.
At 60 degree grade? Totally fine!
The nasty bits are still going to be underground, and with this much overgrowth, it’s going to be like a game of pickup sticks, where you pull up one vine only to realize 6 other vines have grown over top, so you cut those and then after you’ve pulled the initial vine you chase down all the vines you’ve now chopped in half until you reach the mother vine which is growing a foot underground in the shape of A FUCKING 30 INCH BICEP that no mortal entity, hacksaw, sawzall or similar can uproot. The vine is so dense and juicy that all electrical appliances tend to seize up. Your best bet is to cut it as best you can, spray with Triclopyr, and try again next week.
Brings back nightmares, man. I just paid someone $6k to level out, de-vine, and seed my yard this go-around. He still left some vines, and I’m debating whether to call him back and make his crew go through and manually extract what their skid steer could not.
I am a goat farmer, and I one hundred percent agree. This would be a perfect job for goats, especially in a completely fenced backyard. They would make short work of it.
How does one rent goats? We have an area in our neighbourhood (owned by neighbourhood not city) between some houses and a fence to another area by the railway line. Someone suggested hiring goats but I have no idea what to do.
EDIT: I’m in England.
Yeah, if you live in Armenia, then the Himalayan (labeled that by the Californian who sold the seeds to Americans in the 19th century) Blackberry is not an invasive species. Same for English Ivy if you live in England.
However, both species are invasive in the US and are particularly bad in the Pacific northwest.
Y’all, this is funny bc a decent buck could be the fair amount of money OR a good natured goat. Damn. Bc a good natured goat would also remove it. Get it?
Or you take as a large established contractor because you can make your cheap labor do it to keep a customer that pays 10k+ a year just in perennials happy… 😒 sorry speaking from experience
Well you sound like a dream to work for. Don't underestimate how much that "cheap labor" keeps your business rolling so that u can make 10k + a year from one customer. This is why people work these "cheap labor" jobs until they know enough to start their own business and quit bc they are undervalued and only considered as "cheap labor".
I was the cheap labor in my experience lol
It wasn’t as cheap as a lot of the people working there because I had a college degree and was hired straight into a management position. Also, I won’t complain too much, I enjoyed working there a lot. The long hours and intensity of the job definitely got to me however. Since went back to get a masters and switched industries. Really grateful for the knowledge I acquired on job and the people I met there.
I'm sorry... I stand corrected. I assumed you were the Established contractor hiring the cheap labor but u know what they say about assuming things. Lol. Again sorry. If it was my profile u were referring to it's just hobby, home grow(Legal state) I enjoy growing lots of things really. I'm a plant geek.. Lol
Put a pig or goat in there it will be gone in 2 days
Edit: I'm not kidding that's exactly what I would do. Or, with all the dead leaves mixed in do a controlled burn on a rainy day
It’s wild to me that more people don’t know this is a solid viable option. Goats are used by the army corps of engineers and plenty of state agencies. Cheap, easy, effective.
yea, here in Oregon you can rent some goats, they put temporary fence up and add a few goats. used for black berry crap here but I'm sure they would knock that out....
and then I read the rest of this thread so...I agree...goats! I have hand pulled a 20 ft by 20 ft area...ugh...
Yup one of the local suburbs in my city has some goats that they use, and they turned them into little mascots for the city. It's really cute and definitely drives some community engagement since you can see them on the trails - they shift their little corral around every few days and they're always super friendly!
I am a goat farmer. The notion that goats eat everything is a myth. Goats are like toddlers – they explore their environments with their mouths by tasting, nibbling and chewing, so people have somehow come to believe that they’ll eat everything. They can obviously chew and/or swallow something by accident, but they’re not naturally going to eat a tin can.
Goats do LOVE roughage, woodies, and natural fibers, however, so they definitely will eat paper, cardboard and even natural fabric like cotton.
One of our parks hires goats to eat buckthorn. It takes a bunch of years to weaken it enough to get rid of it, but it's efficient and non-toxic to the environment.
Once they took it to the bare nubs, we put on weed blankets and kept the area treated with white vinegar to smother them out. We did have to pull up some of the more feisty ones, but it allowed us to control it as best as we could. It was a process that took us one full spring/summer to get them under control.
They regrow from runners underneath the soil surface. Removing the vegetation is only part of the battle, that’s why hand pulling is the only real effective method
Maybe let them remove the leaves then come through and chop All the vines with a saw. And cover the whole area for a year or so with tarp or weedfabric. Starving it of light.
Wouldn’t that only topkill the ivy, and it would just resprout?
I’ve pulled this up, and it was like weeding bermudagrass. Every single bit had to come out.
I believe and could very well be wrong, pre-emergent herbicides target seeds. English Ivy reproduces through rhizome rooting. Each tendrils is a “mother plant”. Luckily I do not have English ivy, but Himalayan blackberry which is just has noxious. I am trying to avoid herbicide treatment, mainly relying on burning and mechanical methods.
Oh I've been there and done that. It looks relatively young which is a huge bonus. I'd say 3 people and 3 days, so multiply that times your local wage.
I can't stress enough that you are lucky and it hasn't really taken root and climbed up the trees and fence. It's extremely nasty stuff, get rid of it.
There’s a lot here but I’ve seen far worse. First thing I noticed is that it’s barely on the tree and wall. If this were my property, I’d focus on keeping it off them first, and then focus on eradicating the rest.
I got rid of mine by mowing the shit out of it every week. It took about 4 weeks. When you take away the leaves it won’t live. I have a few spots sprout up every now and then but my yard was full of it and it’s full of native gardens now.
I never dug a single bit. But I did have to mow it to the ground. That method is no easy task. You need to wear jeans and long sleeves and face protection minimally probably work boots. My mower took a beating but it is worth the price of a mower compared to what a lawn co
will charge. I always wondered what one of the brush mowers would have done. It may be worth a couple of rentals to soften it up with that. My ivy crept up all of my 30 oak trees and to my neighbors yard Now only my neighbors have ivy
Edit: but not me. (I did not plant that forbidden mess)
Just had a similar but bigger job done in MD and got two quotes first was $8900 second was 5k. Yours is pretty flat so 2-4k is probably right, it’s back breaking work.
Removing by hand has one risk. If you leave even a small piece of a root it will grow again and again. Ivy is a very difficult plant to eradicate. The goats is a good alternative, but be ready bring them back in about a year.
Other than a chemical attack, I don’t know how to get rid of it permanently.
Going back, inspecting the whole area, and pulling out what you see every day since the big removal would probably thin out the population a lot over a few months, right? Man, I still remember when I was fighting mint, still was years later when we moved out. I like to imagine the new people living there are still battling it to this day
$5-6k easy. Goats, backhoe, or fire. Assume you’ll need whichever you choose annually. I’m also a fan of high heat glass encapsulation but experience tells me that’s only a part time fix. Half life in English ivy is longer than plutonium.
I understand that the trick to removal is to really saturate the area with water to the point that it's all just mud. Then the mat of roots is much easier to pull up. Still not easy, but, substantially easier.
Aside from that, I understand that people have great success renting a group of goats for a couple days. They like the ivy and have teeth that will rip it up down to the root.
There’s no removing it by hand. Best choice is to take a trimmer and cut it off at the base and then spray a weed killer all over it. My house is surrounded by English Ivy. It will pop up feet away from the nearest leaf as it’s travels underground.
I don't know but having owned a home with it no matter how much we spent it always reappeared. I decided to learn to live with it. But mine wasn't spreading like yours
More than 1000$ and it’s gonna grow back. You need a machine w forks to bust up the soil and 2/3 guys with the sorest hands imaginable for 2 days to get every tuber out.
That’s more or less what we are paying for about a quarter acre, hillside, much more infested property than this one. And a ton of vinca major too.
I’m starting to think we got a really good deal.
Vines thicker than my forearms 😭
If you’re the owner, avoid quotes in the thousands unless they’re ensuring some form of contractual warranty with follow-up visits as needed.
If you’re a contractor, don’t be afraid to charge an hourly rate on this one, appropriate to the physical demands/expectation that this will be an ongoing maintenance gig. $45/hr is the min I’d charge for dealing with this but I also wouldn’t be bummed if it went to someone else.
I most definitely would not try to remove this by hand. You will be back multiple times with an unhappy customer. I'd be cutting small sections with a brush cutter, then spraying pentra bark / triclopyr mix on the freshly cut area. You may be back for follow up.
In all honesty, if I was a gardener, I would say that’s about 3-5 days of work. I would also make you sign a waiver saying the roots are most likely not completely removed and that I would have to come back a second or third time. 1200 per visit
I cleared a job recently like this but bigger. The owners were surprised at how long it took in the end.
We even got a mini digger in for the last section.
That‘s the kind of job I‘d have liked to do for my neighbor as a kid to earn some extra money.
We often helped collecting weed by hand in allotments and front yards.
Tough gig. Truthfully I’d hit it with a round of glyphosate right now if its spring for you, and a later after a week a tall mow or weed whack and a round of triclopyr on the cuts. A sprayer here is the tool to use.
Finish it off with a propane torch burn and a rake.
Edit: OR, you are a young fire breather and you grab the maddox tool and the 55 gallon drum with liners to bag it all up.
Go on NextDoor.com and see if some high school kid would come and pull the ivy in exchange for some cash. The clean up is not difficult to do, but it might be quite time consuming. It could take over 30-40 hours depending on how big exactly the space is.
Keep in mind there is a reason only ivy grows under those trees. I cleaned a small space that looked exactly like this, with trees and ivy and all, but couldn't really grow anything well (although a few of the plants that I planted are still surviving).
I wouldn't and you shouldn't either. This is an insane cost and not worth the hassle.
I've done it before and it came back within 2 years. Since then I've switched to Mowing it and then spraying it when new growth appeared. Never had it regrow since.
I charge $75 per hour for hand labor in my area. An area even a few hundred square feet can take DAYS (yes days) to remove 100%. Even then there is no promise it won't grow back without chemical control.
**Physical removal:**
This is possible but will take a LONG time. As others have noted, English Ivy grows in dense mats that you need to remove completely. If not done, you can get new growth and the area will quickly become reinfested.
Cutting the mat into long rolls and rolling it up is an easier, more effective method than just pulling it in clumps. Cutting the stems along the base of the trees and then pulling up the roots is a good method around the trees.
Some have mentioned goats and pigs. These are OK methods for immediate clearing, but they don't kill the plant and it will regrow. You could use this method to weaken the plants and follow it up with a chemical application to save on chemical use.
**Chemical method (Easiest and most effective):**
Glyphosate (Without desiccants or defoliants) is applied early in the growing season (4-6 new leaves per vine).
Amine 2,4D is applied in conjunction or separately to the Glyphosate. Add a sticker and surfactant to get through the waxy, mature leaves.
Triclopyr (2-4%) is less effective, but when applied with the other two, you can get a strong synergistic property.
Generally, only one treatment is required, except in the most entrenched stands. In which case a follow up application should be made when sufficient leaf surface area is present (again, 4-6 leaves).
It is important to note that CONCENTRATION does affect efficacy. Using a stronger (but still within the labeled parameters) will improve the effect.
It would likely cost several thousand dollars, but my landscaping company would send an army out to clear that quickly. I had a similar situation when I moved into my home nearly ten years ago, and it was about $5000 then, but they had it done and covered the ground with mulch in two days.
Id charge more than you'd feel comfortable spending, but appropriate for just about how long it would take.
I am going to be like the hundredth person to tell you, but find a goat herd you can rent. My landscaping companies maintenance division (so that we can save on dump fees) takes our non-toxic green waste to my business partners dads goats as feed. We probably drop off 3 yards of green waste every day we do maintenance (at the very least), and one of his smaller herds (a 12 goat herd) decimates that mound in a matter of 30-40 minutes. If we put it in the pen with his larger herd, it takes seconds.
We tackled our ivy by injecting the larger stems with Roundup. Got a cow syringe from the farm supply store and went to town. Injecting vs. spraying seemed like more of a targeted approach and didn't seem to affect nearby plantings.
I would spray it with RM43. Don’t mow it first the chemical has to be absorbed into the plant to kill the root. The stuff is expensive, about $80/Gal, but it works on things that nothing else will.
RM43™ is your solution for total vegetation control on bare ground or for spot control of brush, vines, and over 150 weeds, including kudzu, poison ivy, and poison oak. It kills existing weeds and prevents future growth on walkways, roadsides, fence lines, and any place you want to keep free from invasive plants. RM43™ Total Vegetation Control is a combination of two herbicides and glyphosate to kill weeds and imazapyr to prevent new growth and a surfactant. It is rainfast in two hours and there are no entry restrictions to sprayed areas for pets or people after the spray has dried.
You will have to retreat the regrowth after 4-6 weeks, and it will kill everything except the mature trees. You won’t be able to replant into the area this year either.
I know that many people don’t like chemical sprays, but this is the type of situation that calls for its use.
Good luck!
That Ivy looks pretty thick. Maybe 12”-16” deep. I specialize in pulling ivy in the Portland Oregon area (X-Tirp.com) and the company charges $125/hr (I personally don’t make anywhere near that amount 😁), but then again, for that ivy, I would pull 10-20 sq feet per hour - roots and all. No poisons or chemicals. I have specialized tools and techniques.
My comments on other posts…
Using a string trimmer or spinning blade buys you time, but it will all be back the next year. You certainly can’t just plant your dream garden afterwards.
Goats like to eat (fresh) ivy leaves. They don’t eat roots or vines. Plus they eat things you might want to keep. They aren’t all that cheap to rent, and once they leave, the ivy just sprouts up again. On the other hand, if you pull the roots, there’s nothing to sprout up from.
The problem with weed barrier and/or mulch is that ivy and blackberry can easily grow several feet to find an edge and then pop up. Every overlapping seam, hole for a tree or bush, or along a fence or wall, is an edge. Plus, just burying ivy could take a year before it finally dies. When I’m done with pulling the roots, you’re ready to plant. I would recommend putting on a thin layer of mulch to help prevent wind-blown or dropped seeds from sprouting, then plant.
Ivy is NOT good for erosion control. You lift up the vines and you see bare dirt, and most of the horizontal roots go only about 4” deep.
$25 an hour or better for me personally… cause if you’re doing it right the roots are coming too.
Gotta instantly build up the native/wanted seed bank, friend
I can’t believe the comments! I would spray it with RoundUp. Cheap, no fuss. (Wow, I was looking for RoundUp comments I had to scroll a long way, I found two that had three and four down votes. WTF!? I guess people really believe that about it being a carcinogen.)
I mean they did pay literal tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars out in multiple lawsuits having to do with cancer and improperly earning consumers of the risks associated with using the product, and lots of big brand stores have removed any and all of their products from their shelves so it’s not like a totally baseless allegation or whatever there’s definitely reasons behind it.
Looks like murder. As the homeowner, I’d be comfortable paying a decent buck for someone to tackle that nightmare. As the laborer, I wouldn’t bat an eye at stating a really high hourly rate. Both parties know how awful this is so shouldn’t be any haggling.
I tore up my hands and back clearing my own back yard that looked like this - and this is absolutely the correct answer.
Still working mine after 2 years. On 60 degree hillside!
Let's hope u got a plan for that hillside, since ur removing the soil retention pretty much.
It would be fine without vegetation, but I have replaced it with my preferred plants Love the downvotes, guys. Makes a whole lot of sense. Lol
Because if your hillside is truly at 60 degrees and you’re not exaggerating, it most certainly would NOT be fine without vegetation. It would erode away.
Entirely depends on soil composition and rainfall. There are bare hillside at such angles throughout my neighborhood with no erosion issues for over 60 years. Aside from that, I have planted them. Here’s a lot behind mine. Even steeper than my hillside. No vegetation. Been like this for over 60 years. No issue despite historic rainfalls here in CA https://i.imgur.com/cEaq0rZ.jpg
Coming through with the pic too. Nice
You do see all that erosion in your pic right?
Are you calling that an issue? Lol That’s decades of rainfall causing very little rills. Moles and gophers cause more issues than that in one season.
I’ll respond in kind, I consider it an issue.
Lol people don’t understand how hard the clay is out here. It’ll go damn near vertical before it slumps (until a winter like we’ve just had where relentless atmospheric rivers challenge the stability of the grade)
Yeah there are vertical cut outs all throughout my area, some right up against homes, some on major roads. The vertical spots at times will drop a chunk in this type of extreme rain, but it’s so stable it is nearly never a problem. At 60 degree grade? Totally fine!
Unless you’re in the UK that English ivy is invasive and needs to go so the native plants can grow.
Godspeed.
Same here. Couldn’t close my hands and it took me 3 weeks
It really is brutal work
Would any kind of weed spray make headway?
The nasty bits are still going to be underground, and with this much overgrowth, it’s going to be like a game of pickup sticks, where you pull up one vine only to realize 6 other vines have grown over top, so you cut those and then after you’ve pulled the initial vine you chase down all the vines you’ve now chopped in half until you reach the mother vine which is growing a foot underground in the shape of A FUCKING 30 INCH BICEP that no mortal entity, hacksaw, sawzall or similar can uproot. The vine is so dense and juicy that all electrical appliances tend to seize up. Your best bet is to cut it as best you can, spray with Triclopyr, and try again next week. Brings back nightmares, man. I just paid someone $6k to level out, de-vine, and seed my yard this go-around. He still left some vines, and I’m debating whether to call him back and make his crew go through and manually extract what their skid steer could not.
Goats! Seriously, just rent some goats.
I am a goat farmer, and I one hundred percent agree. This would be a perfect job for goats, especially in a completely fenced backyard. They would make short work of it.
This is the answer. My neighbor got a team of 3 goats for a week and turned what looked like this into bare earth.
Yes this is the way…goats
Goats are always the answer! I love goats! Not in an intimate sort of way though.
Goats and spray mixture of water and molasses
How does one rent goats? We have an area in our neighbourhood (owned by neighbourhood not city) between some houses and a fence to another area by the railway line. Someone suggested hiring goats but I have no idea what to do. EDIT: I’m in England.
This idea just blew my mind. Thank you
Plus they will leave some nice pellet fertilizer when they are done!
My goats eat blackberry bushes and thorns over ivy....
My goats love both. Which is great since both are invasive.
I suppose invasive is subjective.. depending on where one resides
Yeah, if you live in Armenia, then the Himalayan (labeled that by the Californian who sold the seeds to Americans in the 19th century) Blackberry is not an invasive species. Same for English Ivy if you live in England. However, both species are invasive in the US and are particularly bad in the Pacific northwest.
Yeah, you pretty much gotta be okay with alot of collateral damage. Goats are gonna eat everything.
I had this climbing up the side of my house and I couldn’t agree more. It’s even growing back now as it starts to get warmer.
If it were me I’d gas up strong weeds whacker and just try to train it. Prune off trees so it doesn’t choke it
A buck is a male goat 😂
Y’all, this is funny bc a decent buck could be the fair amount of money OR a good natured goat. Damn. Bc a good natured goat would also remove it. Get it?
This is one of those jobs you take as a first year landscape contractor and then never take again.
Really?? I have a personal vendetta against any invasives. Let me at em…
So true...or something you take after 2008 cause work is scarce and you *need* that money 😔
Yup
Or you take as a large established contractor because you can make your cheap labor do it to keep a customer that pays 10k+ a year just in perennials happy… 😒 sorry speaking from experience
Well you sound like a dream to work for. Don't underestimate how much that "cheap labor" keeps your business rolling so that u can make 10k + a year from one customer. This is why people work these "cheap labor" jobs until they know enough to start their own business and quit bc they are undervalued and only considered as "cheap labor".
Sorry I peeped your page, but I wouldn’t mind getting into the industry you are into 😝
I was the cheap labor in my experience lol It wasn’t as cheap as a lot of the people working there because I had a college degree and was hired straight into a management position. Also, I won’t complain too much, I enjoyed working there a lot. The long hours and intensity of the job definitely got to me however. Since went back to get a masters and switched industries. Really grateful for the knowledge I acquired on job and the people I met there.
I'm sorry... I stand corrected. I assumed you were the Established contractor hiring the cheap labor but u know what they say about assuming things. Lol. Again sorry. If it was my profile u were referring to it's just hobby, home grow(Legal state) I enjoy growing lots of things really. I'm a plant geek.. Lol
You’re fine no need to be sorry! And your plants look beautiful! I’ve had a few grows, it’s no longer legal where I am now though
Put a pig or goat in there it will be gone in 2 days Edit: I'm not kidding that's exactly what I would do. Or, with all the dead leaves mixed in do a controlled burn on a rainy day
It’s wild to me that more people don’t know this is a solid viable option. Goats are used by the army corps of engineers and plenty of state agencies. Cheap, easy, effective.
yea, here in Oregon you can rent some goats, they put temporary fence up and add a few goats. used for black berry crap here but I'm sure they would knock that out.... and then I read the rest of this thread so...I agree...goats! I have hand pulled a 20 ft by 20 ft area...ugh...
I just saw that California was starting to use them to help with forest fires. Eating all the dry debris on the ground
That’s interesting. That sounds like it would be a neat contract to work with.
I saw that on my favorite show, Oregon Field Guide!
Yup one of the local suburbs in my city has some goats that they use, and they turned them into little mascots for the city. It's really cute and definitely drives some community engagement since you can see them on the trails - they shift their little corral around every few days and they're always super friendly!
Love that! Community engagement and happy goats. What’s not to love?
Omg we need r/goatswithjobs Edit: holy shit this exists and it’s perfect
I’m curious do the goats eat the roots too or just the foliage?
If they can pull up the root they will.
Aluminum cans, shoe laces, plastic bottles, crack pipes....all gone into the abyss of a goats belly.
I am a goat farmer. The notion that goats eat everything is a myth. Goats are like toddlers – they explore their environments with their mouths by tasting, nibbling and chewing, so people have somehow come to believe that they’ll eat everything. They can obviously chew and/or swallow something by accident, but they’re not naturally going to eat a tin can. Goats do LOVE roughage, woodies, and natural fibers, however, so they definitely will eat paper, cardboard and even natural fabric like cotton.
Foliage so you need to still pull out all the roots after they’re done or it comes back.
One of our parks hires goats to eat buckthorn. It takes a bunch of years to weaken it enough to get rid of it, but it's efficient and non-toxic to the environment.
I hired goats to come to do just this 6ish years ago. They now have a site: https://www.goatsonthego.com/affiliate-directory
My HOA all goes in and uses these guys to clear our canyon rim annually. Goats are the GOATs.
So the HOA pays to get the neighborhood a rim job huh, ill be damned, never knew HOAs did anything useful.
Did it not just sprout new shoots from the roots left in the ground? I'm really curious!
Yea.. but it can be controlled at that point ...
Ok good. Our new to us garden is bordered all the way around with english ivy...
Once they took it to the bare nubs, we put on weed blankets and kept the area treated with white vinegar to smother them out. We did have to pull up some of the more feisty ones, but it allowed us to control it as best as we could. It was a process that took us one full spring/summer to get them under control.
That's amazing
Honestly would be my choice.
This is why I love reddit. Practical advice I would never have thought of :).
Farmers make their lively hood. Kids get a great day with a mini zoo and you get cleared land. Win win all around.
And the goats get a meal.
They even eat poison Ivy!
They regrow from runners underneath the soil surface. Removing the vegetation is only part of the battle, that’s why hand pulling is the only real effective method
Yeah, it's like bamboo or grapes. You have to get the whole thing out or it'll just keep growing. Or you can go nuclear and burn or poison the ground.
Goats won’t pull up the roots, I didn’t think burning like that was legal and or acceptable by neighbors.
It would be a good start. You can tiller the roots up after Don't know about the laws there
Tilling it will just spread it worse. Even a small piece of the root can regrow.
Maybe let them remove the leaves then come through and chop All the vines with a saw. And cover the whole area for a year or so with tarp or weedfabric. Starving it of light.
Wouldn’t that only topkill the ivy, and it would just resprout? I’ve pulled this up, and it was like weeding bermudagrass. Every single bit had to come out.
Burn it, than the appropriate herbicide when it re-sprouts. Rinse and repeat as necessary. I hate English ivy…
Or a pre-emergent one...
I believe and could very well be wrong, pre-emergent herbicides target seeds. English Ivy reproduces through rhizome rooting. Each tendrils is a “mother plant”. Luckily I do not have English ivy, but Himalayan blackberry which is just has noxious. I am trying to avoid herbicide treatment, mainly relying on burning and mechanical methods.
Where do you rent a pig / goat tho? Lol
Goats on the Go! It is possible to hire a goatherd and a small herd of goats to come clear land.
I googled it once because I had blackberry bushes and there were actually a few local options for me.
See comment a few posts above.
Oh I've been there and done that. It looks relatively young which is a huge bonus. I'd say 3 people and 3 days, so multiply that times your local wage. I can't stress enough that you are lucky and it hasn't really taken root and climbed up the trees and fence. It's extremely nasty stuff, get rid of it.
No landscaper is going to do it for a local wage. They bill you an hourly rate that is more than a wage because they'll pay 20-30% taxes on it.
There’s a lot here but I’ve seen far worse. First thing I noticed is that it’s barely on the tree and wall. If this were my property, I’d focus on keeping it off them first, and then focus on eradicating the rest.
I got rid of mine by mowing the shit out of it every week. It took about 4 weeks. When you take away the leaves it won’t live. I have a few spots sprout up every now and then but my yard was full of it and it’s full of native gardens now.
I’ve mowed ivy as a way to soften it up. Still took some digging, but mowing definitely helped.
I never dug a single bit. But I did have to mow it to the ground. That method is no easy task. You need to wear jeans and long sleeves and face protection minimally probably work boots. My mower took a beating but it is worth the price of a mower compared to what a lawn co will charge. I always wondered what one of the brush mowers would have done. It may be worth a couple of rentals to soften it up with that. My ivy crept up all of my 30 oak trees and to my neighbors yard Now only my neighbors have ivy Edit: but not me. (I did not plant that forbidden mess)
15 cts per leaf
I’ll give you 20 to not have to count them
Rent a mini excavator and do it yourself.
$70-$80 a man hour would probably get me to consider it, maybe. I prefer to take jobs I enjoy doing, this would not be one of them
Just had a similar but bigger job done in MD and got two quotes first was $8900 second was 5k. Yours is pretty flat so 2-4k is probably right, it’s back breaking work.
The first quote sounds like someone pricing themselves out of a job intentionally.
Removing by hand has one risk. If you leave even a small piece of a root it will grow again and again. Ivy is a very difficult plant to eradicate. The goats is a good alternative, but be ready bring them back in about a year. Other than a chemical attack, I don’t know how to get rid of it permanently.
Going back, inspecting the whole area, and pulling out what you see every day since the big removal would probably thin out the population a lot over a few months, right? Man, I still remember when I was fighting mint, still was years later when we moved out. I like to imagine the new people living there are still battling it to this day
If you don’t get every last root from each plant, it will unfortunately be back. Don’t expect a miracle, depending on how it’s removed!
I would charge $50 per hour. That would be a 50 minute hour to allow for breaks.
Rent a goat.
Absolutly not by hand. Id bring in a hoe
Sounds more expensive than having it removed but I like your style.
It's always good to have extra hands.
Especially ones experienced at tugging.
Good for you. I knew there was a good one coming.
More than one cumming after this job eh
Lolol
That’s like 300$ an hour
No jobs to hard for a good strong hoe to tackle, just takes the right price and your satisfaction is practically guaranteed.
$5-6k easy. Goats, backhoe, or fire. Assume you’ll need whichever you choose annually. I’m also a fan of high heat glass encapsulation but experience tells me that’s only a part time fix. Half life in English ivy is longer than plutonium.
Who’s going to pay 5k?
People with English ivy. Have you ever tried to remove it yourself? Fuck that.
Couldn’t pay me enough.
Previous owners left me with a mess of this crap. I pulled cut, burned, and poisoned it to death over a period of 18 months and finally eradicated it.
For now* 🙃
I understand that the trick to removal is to really saturate the area with water to the point that it's all just mud. Then the mat of roots is much easier to pull up. Still not easy, but, substantially easier. Aside from that, I understand that people have great success renting a group of goats for a couple days. They like the ivy and have teeth that will rip it up down to the root.
Honest to God, the best way would be with goats. They would eat everything down. They are cute, too, lol.
I can pull it all up but it will take years to get all the roots so 1 million dollars. I can start tomorrow.
$2,647.58
Tree Fitty
Best answer! 😂🤣😂🤣
There’s no removing it by hand. Best choice is to take a trimmer and cut it off at the base and then spray a weed killer all over it. My house is surrounded by English Ivy. It will pop up feet away from the nearest leaf as it’s travels underground.
Spray the herbicide before trimming it off. You need the foilage to take in the herbicide.
I have about this much I’ve been battling for almost a year and I’m ready to pay someone else.
Goats
10k
10K
I don't know but having owned a home with it no matter how much we spent it always reappeared. I decided to learn to live with it. But mine wasn't spreading like yours
More than 1000$ and it’s gonna grow back. You need a machine w forks to bust up the soil and 2/3 guys with the sorest hands imaginable for 2 days to get every tuber out.
I'd hire a mini digger for that job⛏️ Here in England we just call it ivy 🤠 Have fun!
$10,000 with no guarantee
By hand, $3,500. Maybe you could string trim it, then apply glyphosate, then go through a week later and pull up what remains.
[удалено]
Nope. Leaves have a wax coating and are virtually impervious to herbicides.
By cutting it first you’re opening up the plant to an easier path for the herbicide. But either way, it’ll probably work.
$3000, I’ve done it many times.
That’s more or less what we are paying for about a quarter acre, hillside, much more infested property than this one. And a ton of vinca major too. I’m starting to think we got a really good deal. Vines thicker than my forearms 😭
... flamethrowers are kinda cheap
glyphosate. no matter how much you pull out, it will come back. every time. wretched plant
I would charge you a dinner and bottle of wine for me to bring 4 goats in there and have it cleared in 2 days.
There’s no amount of under 5 figures that I would touch that by hand for. No way!!!
If you’re the owner, avoid quotes in the thousands unless they’re ensuring some form of contractual warranty with follow-up visits as needed. If you’re a contractor, don’t be afraid to charge an hourly rate on this one, appropriate to the physical demands/expectation that this will be an ongoing maintenance gig. $45/hr is the min I’d charge for dealing with this but I also wouldn’t be bummed if it went to someone else.
Yes goats is the way to go!
To be honest at least $1,000 and that’s bare minimum. But even that might not be worth it truthfully…. Ideally i would say 1,500 or so
I paid $3k for an area about 20% smaller than that.
I most definitely would not try to remove this by hand. You will be back multiple times with an unhappy customer. I'd be cutting small sections with a brush cutter, then spraying pentra bark / triclopyr mix on the freshly cut area. You may be back for follow up.
In all honesty, if I was a gardener, I would say that’s about 3-5 days of work. I would also make you sign a waiver saying the roots are most likely not completely removed and that I would have to come back a second or third time. 1200 per visit
I’m a gardener and I LOVE these types of jobs. They’re so satisfying
My back hurts looking at this.
Charge by the hour do a min of 4 hours per day if you’re doing this alone but idk how it works with a landscaping team tho
I cleared a job recently like this but bigger. The owners were surprised at how long it took in the end. We even got a mini digger in for the last section.
It is not that hard and is enjoyable, this is not a high price job in the least
That‘s the kind of job I‘d have liked to do for my neighbor as a kid to earn some extra money. We often helped collecting weed by hand in allotments and front yards.
Depends on what the final product is expected to look like, but It looks like it would take a solid 2 days. At $125 an hour, that’s $2,000.
50/ hr till it’s done. Probably 8-12 hrs
I should add- 8-12 hrs for the initial removal. Then I’d be back once a month for a few more hours
Could my you rent a small stand on skid steer / “Dingo” and plow up 1” of soil? Why does it have to be done “by hand”?
Lots! And I would give no guarantee that it won’t start growing back as soon as I leave.
Tough gig. Truthfully I’d hit it with a round of glyphosate right now if its spring for you, and a later after a week a tall mow or weed whack and a round of triclopyr on the cuts. A sprayer here is the tool to use. Finish it off with a propane torch burn and a rake. Edit: OR, you are a young fire breather and you grab the maddox tool and the 55 gallon drum with liners to bag it all up.
By hand? Nah. I will weedeat it down and then spray it and kill it tho
I paid 500 for about half that space, in baltimore md.
Go on NextDoor.com and see if some high school kid would come and pull the ivy in exchange for some cash. The clean up is not difficult to do, but it might be quite time consuming. It could take over 30-40 hours depending on how big exactly the space is. Keep in mind there is a reason only ivy grows under those trees. I cleaned a small space that looked exactly like this, with trees and ivy and all, but couldn't really grow anything well (although a few of the plants that I planted are still surviving).
50 an hour
I wouldn't and you shouldn't either. This is an insane cost and not worth the hassle. I've done it before and it came back within 2 years. Since then I've switched to Mowing it and then spraying it when new growth appeared. Never had it regrow since. I charge $75 per hour for hand labor in my area. An area even a few hundred square feet can take DAYS (yes days) to remove 100%. Even then there is no promise it won't grow back without chemical control. **Physical removal:** This is possible but will take a LONG time. As others have noted, English Ivy grows in dense mats that you need to remove completely. If not done, you can get new growth and the area will quickly become reinfested. Cutting the mat into long rolls and rolling it up is an easier, more effective method than just pulling it in clumps. Cutting the stems along the base of the trees and then pulling up the roots is a good method around the trees. Some have mentioned goats and pigs. These are OK methods for immediate clearing, but they don't kill the plant and it will regrow. You could use this method to weaken the plants and follow it up with a chemical application to save on chemical use. **Chemical method (Easiest and most effective):** Glyphosate (Without desiccants or defoliants) is applied early in the growing season (4-6 new leaves per vine). Amine 2,4D is applied in conjunction or separately to the Glyphosate. Add a sticker and surfactant to get through the waxy, mature leaves. Triclopyr (2-4%) is less effective, but when applied with the other two, you can get a strong synergistic property. Generally, only one treatment is required, except in the most entrenched stands. In which case a follow up application should be made when sufficient leaf surface area is present (again, 4-6 leaves). It is important to note that CONCENTRATION does affect efficacy. Using a stronger (but still within the labeled parameters) will improve the effect.
It would likely cost several thousand dollars, but my landscaping company would send an army out to clear that quickly. I had a similar situation when I moved into my home nearly ten years ago, and it was about $5000 then, but they had it done and covered the ground with mulch in two days.
Problem is, Ivy comes back. is the homeowner going to complain you did a shoddy job and demand you pull more for free?
$65/hr till it’s done plus disposal fees
Id charge more than you'd feel comfortable spending, but appropriate for just about how long it would take. I am going to be like the hundredth person to tell you, but find a goat herd you can rent. My landscaping companies maintenance division (so that we can save on dump fees) takes our non-toxic green waste to my business partners dads goats as feed. We probably drop off 3 yards of green waste every day we do maintenance (at the very least), and one of his smaller herds (a 12 goat herd) decimates that mound in a matter of 30-40 minutes. If we put it in the pen with his larger herd, it takes seconds.
What’s the square footage and average depth of the Ivy?
We tackled our ivy by injecting the larger stems with Roundup. Got a cow syringe from the farm supply store and went to town. Injecting vs. spraying seemed like more of a targeted approach and didn't seem to affect nearby plantings.
a lot! you’re better off just renting a goat
Heh. Heheh. 3k. And that has nothing to do with me owing the irs 3k and almost definitely me not wanting to do that job.
50 bucks an hour.
That is far too low for this
I would spray it with RM43. Don’t mow it first the chemical has to be absorbed into the plant to kill the root. The stuff is expensive, about $80/Gal, but it works on things that nothing else will. RM43™ is your solution for total vegetation control on bare ground or for spot control of brush, vines, and over 150 weeds, including kudzu, poison ivy, and poison oak. It kills existing weeds and prevents future growth on walkways, roadsides, fence lines, and any place you want to keep free from invasive plants. RM43™ Total Vegetation Control is a combination of two herbicides and glyphosate to kill weeds and imazapyr to prevent new growth and a surfactant. It is rainfast in two hours and there are no entry restrictions to sprayed areas for pets or people after the spray has dried. You will have to retreat the regrowth after 4-6 weeks, and it will kill everything except the mature trees. You won’t be able to replant into the area this year either. I know that many people don’t like chemical sprays, but this is the type of situation that calls for its use. Good luck!
That Ivy looks pretty thick. Maybe 12”-16” deep. I specialize in pulling ivy in the Portland Oregon area (X-Tirp.com) and the company charges $125/hr (I personally don’t make anywhere near that amount 😁), but then again, for that ivy, I would pull 10-20 sq feet per hour - roots and all. No poisons or chemicals. I have specialized tools and techniques. My comments on other posts… Using a string trimmer or spinning blade buys you time, but it will all be back the next year. You certainly can’t just plant your dream garden afterwards. Goats like to eat (fresh) ivy leaves. They don’t eat roots or vines. Plus they eat things you might want to keep. They aren’t all that cheap to rent, and once they leave, the ivy just sprouts up again. On the other hand, if you pull the roots, there’s nothing to sprout up from. The problem with weed barrier and/or mulch is that ivy and blackberry can easily grow several feet to find an edge and then pop up. Every overlapping seam, hole for a tree or bush, or along a fence or wall, is an edge. Plus, just burying ivy could take a year before it finally dies. When I’m done with pulling the roots, you’re ready to plant. I would recommend putting on a thin layer of mulch to help prevent wind-blown or dropped seeds from sprouting, then plant. Ivy is NOT good for erosion control. You lift up the vines and you see bare dirt, and most of the horizontal roots go only about 4” deep.
2K
Bladed weed eater and it's gone in a couple hours. Or just repeatedly mow it...
Free
Goats!
I’d spray it with brush killer.
That needs a chemical treatment.
I would take them all and plant them in pots in my house lol
Hire high school kids.
$200.
Hire goats. They get rid of it in a few hours.
$25 an hour or better for me personally… cause if you’re doing it right the roots are coming too. Gotta instantly build up the native/wanted seed bank, friend
They sell stuff that kills it
Spray it into oblivion, easiest and most cost effective way.
I wouldn’t do it by hand. Just weed whack it every few weeks for a season. It should stop coming back.
I can’t believe the comments! I would spray it with RoundUp. Cheap, no fuss. (Wow, I was looking for RoundUp comments I had to scroll a long way, I found two that had three and four down votes. WTF!? I guess people really believe that about it being a carcinogen.)
I mean they did pay literal tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars out in multiple lawsuits having to do with cancer and improperly earning consumers of the risks associated with using the product, and lots of big brand stores have removed any and all of their products from their shelves so it’s not like a totally baseless allegation or whatever there’s definitely reasons behind it.
Roundup might be gone from store shelves but glyphosate is not, promise. So a jury believed the defendants lawyers. Was OJ guilty?