Welcome to Knoxville! I hope you enjoy it, after you survive all the stresses of moving. :-)

Ivy is an invasive weed. However, if you are willing to whack it back as necessary, it can make a pretty nice ground cover. Opinions will vary as to whether you "should" plant it or not. But no, it is NOT environmentally friendly because of its invasiveness.

As for your yard -- do you have sun? Shade? Clay? Rock? Dry? Moist? We need more details!

I think the backyard is fairly shady. It's a fairly big back yard for a traditional sort of neighborhood and it is entirely wooded once you get 30' from the back of the house.

There is ivy up many of those trees, so I suppose I'll need to deal with that. After your e-mail, I googled the subject and that English Ivy is universally despised by those who care about native plants. Hopefully, I can get that ivy down and spare those big trees.

Nevertheless, if the ivy is rigorous as a lawn cover, I would think that one could debate the benefits of NOT having to use the heavily poluting lawn mower, and reducing the watering usage so long as the ivy is managed.

Perhaps there is another ground cover for me to consider.

My vision for now is to 'garden' the yard with low maintenance plants and ground covers with wide paths for foot traffic.

It seems that everything is clay around these parts... maybe I'm wrong. This stuff is foriegn material to me. Florida dirt is easily shoveled. You can dig a hole by kicking the dirt! Although I haven't tried to shovel it yet, the clay feels like cement underfoot....hopefully it's not too difficult to work.

The entire lot gently slopes toward the street...not sure if it would be characterized as moist or dry.

I looked at your list of cuttings. You seem to have one heck of a variety!

Kelton

Welcome!! I don't know enough to be of any help to your landscaping, but wanted to welcome you to the area and to this forum. There are a lot of helpful folks here on the garden web. Your ideas of what you want for your landscape sound wonderful. If you are looking for nurseries to visit with good knowledge of what to plant in different situations, two of my favorites are Sunlight Gardens www.sunlightgardens.com and Beaver Creek www.beavercreeknursery.net

I really like the folks at both these places, they've been very helpful to me - even though I was working with a small budget, they've taken the time to instruct and advise. This area will definitely present you with some new challenges, but it can be equally rewarding and as we all know .... it's a work in progress. Frances

Kelton, welcome to GW! You're gonna love it here.

Welcome to Knoxville! You'll love it here. Great place and wonderful people.
One of the first things you should do is head over to the UT Gardens. A great place to spend an afternoon and to find out what does well here and get some ideas. See link below for more information and a map.
Mark June 24-25 on your calendar. That's BloomsDay at the gardens. Lots of fun and informative workshops.
http://bloomsdays.tennessee.edu/workshops/
Also, UT is having a series of "personal development" classes at the gardens this summer, some in conjunction with Friends of UT Gardens.
http://www.outreach.utk.edu/ppd/summer06/courses/landscape.asp
That should keep you busy!
PS: For trees, check out the UT Arboretum in Oak Ridge.
There are a lot of garden resources here and plenty of people who would love to help you create the garden you want.

Here is a link that might be useful: UT Gardens

Thanks for the great info!

I'm sure I'll like it here. I'm glad I found GW!

Kelton

Hello there and welcome to a wonderful place to put down your roots (pun intended)!

I have a couple of things to share with you about this area and about English Ivy:

THere is a wonderful place in South Knoxville, Ijams Nature Center, which is dedicated to Native Plants and Wildlife. THey have about 50 acres with Nature Walks, one of which has a boardwalk over the edge of the river and CAVES you can peer into. THey have a Native Plant sale in the early autumn with growers from all around. And all of their staff is very helpful. The property was owned by a family for decades who willed for it to become a conservation place and nature center. Mostly all virgin land and woods, with greenhouses and gardens based on sun/shade, etc.

ENGLISH IVY: well, you've read about it. For your own health benefits and the health of your new home and property, it would behoove you to phase it OUT of your space. You may have energy now to "keep it at bay", but it will take more energy every year to do that. DEFINITELY, get it out of the trees. FOr now cut the Ivy at the roots around the trees until you can get to the rest of it up the tree. Cutting the roots will keep it from spreading up the tree.

Being from Florida, you may have not yet seen homes and buildings where English Ivy is growing up the entire place, literally smothering the building and its inhabitants. Virginia Creeper can do that, too. But I'll stick with Ivy for now. ANd, being from Florida, you know how invasive Spanish Moss can be.

I am an eleven year practitioner of Feng Shui (Black Hat, not Compass), and have experienced with some clients the effects of having it on their home and how their lives shifted after they got it off. First of all, energetically it does smother and "suck your life force". It smothers/closes off communication between those who live there. And it will literally eat its way into the home and destroy the mortar between bricks. It "becomes one with" the windows and gutters and other parts of the home. So, it is also eating at the inhabitants' life force. The little suckers which attach them to things, are so good at attaching that they will take paint and METAL frames off when you try to get them off of the house parts. The suckers had so tightly attched to the clients' casement windows, that the windows (glass and metal parts) almost broke while they were getting it off. The Ivy had literally become part of the windows and brick. And their gutters pulled off and had to be reattached. Gutters are part of a homes "circulatory system" helping the fluids to flow in appropriate ways.

The Ivy had grown around the windows and INTO the house through the openings around the windows (and windows into the basement, OH THAT was fun.) So, it was affecting the foundation of the home.

SO, while the clients had this overgrown challenge, they had many relationship problems and were 'living separately' in the same home. AS they cleared off the ivy over a couple of months, they became aware of what they felt was a large heavy burden being lifted off. They felt more clear. And they were able to become more open with one another again. They had lived in the house for eight years, and thought it would be real pretty to let the Ivy grow, like is glamourized in photos and such.

Sure, this information may sound like a crock of bull, but if you were to go to a home grown over and go inside and meet the souls who live there and hear about their health issues, you would come to understand just what a life force sucker English Ivy is.

If anyone is interested, I can give examples of homes in South Knoxville which exemplify this depleting of life force. Just email me privately.

Suffice it to say that you and your yard will THANK you for erradicating the English Ivy as quickly as you can. You may or may not ever be able to get it all out as it may have spread its roots. If that is the case keep it cut down all the way to the ground. Yet, if it is allowed to grow, you and your yard and garden may have these similar experiences.

By clearing it out, you are also setting the intention to keep your own life more clear. You and your home will be able to breath and have enhanced life force to live out your life, and generate more healthful life force from all the other nurturing plants you grow.

I hope this helps you without scaring you too much. You will LOVE gardening and living in Knoxville. I grew up here and left from 1979 to 2001 (lived out west). And it was our lush green-ness and songbirds that I missed SO much. And the folks here on our forum are a great resource.

MANY BLESSINGS TO YOU AND YOUR NEW HOME.
Devi
(davy)

Devi (or others),

I just went a looked around the wooded lot part of the yard. I see that the ivy has ascended far into the tall trees.

So cutting these ivy vines at the base will not kill the existing growth? Does the ivy actually leach nutrients from the bark of the tree (making snipping at the base useless)?

These trees are darn tall, so I am certain I will not attempt to climb into the heights!

Kelton

I just came back from a visit to Sunlight Gardens. What a fantastic place.

Thanks for the recommendation.

We bought 5 Russian Sages, and one Goldies Wood Fern. I've never seen or heard of this fern... great looking fronds, though.

Kelton

Hi Kelton,

About the Ivy up the trees. I'd say that cutting its roots is a start of killing it off. OR BEFORE you do that, possibly even using a substance which kills plants down to their roots. Roundup or such. Use that to spray the ivy as high up as you can reach, not over your head unless you're on a ladder. Then see what happens. Please keep me posted.

Or I'd also say call the folks at Ijams Nature Center, and talk to Todd Whitcher or someone who works with the native plants. They may offer you additional or even very different advice, which may be better than what I suggest.

Blessings,
Devi