I hate to say this but a fence won't help. My neighbor also has English Ivy and we have a 7' wood fence between us. The ivy climbs up the fence on her side, helping ti ruin the fence, and comes under it to get in my yard. It makes me CRAZY!

I'd love to hear a response that can help you. I really feel your pain and wish I had a solution.

What really scares me is that there are about 8 very tall pines between our yards that are completely choked with the stuff. I'm sure the trees will eventually die and, as is the way of nature, fall on my house instead of hers. I'm hoping to be able to afford to have them all cut down before that happens. I guess in the meantime I'll simply have to get out there with the weedwacker every spring. I just cleared off a large section that I had cleared 2 years ago. I tell you, it ain't no fun doing the same labor over and over.

I hear you about that! I feel like I have this battle every spring. I have had this discussion with her but she just won't take me seriously. She thinks it is a good groundcover. I end up at the doctor's every spring with a sore back from pulling it out from our common side. Sometimes I think I should just leave it because itis choking her bushes out. But I know that ifI don't at least contain it somewhat it will just be a nightmare to deal with.

I had the same problem with a HUGE tulip tree. I had the vines cut completely at the bottom the the tree where they started climbing up the tree. It took a few months, but eventually the vine died and dried up enough that it lost its grip on the tree. One day the entire vine mass just came crashing down, fortunately there was nothing underneath it. Unfortunately I did eventually have to take down the treee because the damage had already been done. That was a $3,000 job!

I also faced this same issue with bamboo that the previous owner planted (let me tell you, that does beat ivy. I broke SIX pitch forks trying to get the roots out for that). Butthe Roundup did work in that case. After the mature foilage was removed and the roots attacked the Roundup would kill any new growth. But I did have to be diligent andspray a few times a week. Once the growth got to a certain size it was immune to the Roundup. As onee of the yardmen said when they declined the bamboo removal job -- that is what they invented Agent Orange for!

Here is a great discussion on control that I found --

Here is a link that might be useful: Ivy Control