English Ivy

Hedera helix

Plant Details

USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 5a-10b Find Your Zone

Plant Type: Evergreen Vine

Height at Maturity: 6-8″ when used as a groundcover

Width at Maturity: Depends on pruning
Spacing: 18 to 24 inches for mass plantings

Growth Habit / Form: Dense, Spreading/Trailing

Growth Rate: Slow when young, Moderate when established

Flower Color: –

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Fragrant Flowers: –

Foliage Color: Dark Green

Fragrant Foliage: No

Berries: No

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Sun Needs: Morning Sun w/Dappled or Afternoon Shade, All Day Filtered Sun or Dappled Shade, Full to Mostly Shade

Water Needs: Average, low when established

Soil Type: Clay, Loam, Sand (amended), Silt

Soil Moisture / Drainage: Well-Drained Moist

Soil pH: 5.5 – 6.5 (Acid to Slightly Acid)

Maintenance / Care: Low to Average

Attracts: Visual Attention

Resistances: Deer – more info, Drought, Heat, Insect, Rabbit, Shade

Description

English Ivy is a moderate to fast-growing large-leafed evergreen vining plant with attractive glossy, triple-lobed dark green leaves on vines that trail, climb, and cascade. A highly ornamental vine great for use as a groundcover or as a spiller plant in container gardens.

Landscape & Garden Uses

Growing 6 to 8 inches tall and trailing to form a dense carpet of evergreen foliage, English Ivy is ideal for use as a groundcover in landscape borders and as a soil stabilizer on embankments, hillsides and slopes for erosion control. Its vines will also cling to and climb brick, stone, wooden and other walls with porous surfaces to create an attractive “live wall.” Also effective spilling over walls. Very nice in pots, planters, hanging baskets and other containers that can be situated on patios, decks, porches or even indoors as a houseplant.

Suggested Spacing: 18 to 24 inches for mass plantings

How To Measure Total Square Feet Of A Planting Area

How Many Plants Needed To Cover A Planting Area?

Note: For our customers who live and garden north of USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 5a, where this Ivy plant is not reliably winter hardy, you’ll be happy to know it can be grown in containers that can be brought indoors during winter and placed back outside when temperatures warm up in spring.

Growing Preferences

English Ivy is easy to grow in most any moist but well-drained soil of average to low fertility and shade or part shade. Avoid direct afternoon sun in the South. Established plantings are very drought tolerant. Constantly soggy soils or standing water is problematic.

Caution: Ivy plants can be invasive so make sure to control their spread when growing near woodland areas.

Helpful Articles

Click on the link below to find helpful advice from our experts on how to plant, prune and fertilize Ivy plants.

How To Plant, Grow & Care For Ivy

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