By Evan Le, Founder of Neat & Tidy Landscaping and Editor of American Landscaping Journal
Working in landscaping around Seattle, we come across English ivy almost every day.
It’s in front yards.
Backyards.
Parking strips.
Parks.
Slopes.
Fence lines.
Greenbelts.
And climbing up trees.
Once you learn to recognize it, you can’t really unsee it.
Before I worked in landscaping, I probably would have looked at many of these properties and thought the same thing most homeowners think:
It’s just ground cover.
It’s green. It looks natural. This is Seattle. Plants grow everywhere.
But once you’ve removed enough ivy, you start looking at it very differently.
And if you’re thinking about buying a house covered in ivy, you should know what you’re buying before that landscape becomes yours.
You Found the House
Maybe it’s the house you’ve been looking for.
It’s close to work.
The neighborhood is good.
There’s enough parking.
The kitchen needs some work, but you can renovate that.
The bathroom is dated.
The yard is overgrown, but that’s not unusual.
Then you notice ivy.
Maybe there’s a little along the fence.
Some underneath the shrubs.
Some climbing a tree in the backyard.
You don’t think much about it.
How difficult could ivy possibly be?
Pull it out.
Cut it back.
Throw some bark down.
Done.
And sometimes that’s exactly what happens.
A small amount of young ivy can be a completely manageable project.
But that’s not every ivy project we see.
Small Ivy and a Mature Ivy Infestation Are Completely Different Projects
This is something I want homeowners to understand.
Landscaping scales.
More square footage means more work.
More density means more work.
More years of growth usually means more material.
A slope makes the work harder.
Poor access makes hauling harder.
More vegetation means more waste.
And all of that eventually becomes labor, equipment, hauling and cost.
A few patches of ivy around a garden bed?
I wouldn’t panic.
Hundreds or thousands of square feet of mature ivy that’s been growing for decades?
Now we’re talking about something completely different.
We’ve encountered mature ivy with extremely thick vines and crowns.
At that point, you’re not casually pulling ground cover on a Saturday afternoon.
You’re cutting.
Digging.
Pulling.
Separating vines.
Finding crowns.
Moving huge volumes of vegetation.
Loading it.
And hauling it away.
On sufficiently large properties, manual removal may not even be the most practical approach. Depending on the terrain and what needs to be preserved, machinery or another type of land-clearing approach may make more sense.
That’s something I’d want to understand before buying the property.
Look Up
One of the first things I look for isn’t actually the ivy on the ground.
It’s the ivy climbing the trees.
That’s where homeowners should pay attention.
Ivy uses trees and other structures to climb toward sunlight. Once established, it can extend high into a tree canopy.
That doesn’t mean every tree with ivy growing on it is about to fall over.
But mature ivy can add substantial vegetation to a tree, obscure the trunk and branches, complicate inspection, compete within the surrounding growing environment, and create a situation worth evaluating—especially with large trees near a house.
If you’re looking at a property and there are mature trees covered heavily in ivy, don’t just look at the house and say:
“We’ll clean that up later.”
Have the trees evaluated if their condition could affect the property.
A large tree is very different from a garden bed.
Look Down Too
Then there’s the ivy underneath your feet.
English ivy spreads across the ground through long trailing stems that root and continue expanding.
That’s why a small planting can eventually cover a surprisingly large area if nobody manages it.
And once ivy has been established for years, removing what you see isn’t necessarily the end of the maintenance.
There may be inaccessible portions.
There may be material underneath shrubs, fences, rocks or structures.
There may be ivy coming from a neighboring property.
And there may simply be pieces that get missed during a large manual removal project.
That’s landscaping.
You’re working with living material, soil, roots, water and sunlight—not replacing a kitchen cabinet.
So I don’t like promising homeowners:
“We’ll remove this and you’ll never see ivy again.”
I’d rather tell you the truth.
Get the major infestation under control.
Remove as thoroughly as practical within the agreed area.
Then maintain the property.
If something comes back, deal with it while it’s small.
That’s much easier than letting it take over again for another ten years.
Your Neighbor’s Ivy Can Become Your Ivy
This is another thing to look for when buying a house.
Where is the ivy coming from?
Maybe the property you’re buying has a relatively small amount.
But what’s on the other side of the fence?
If the neighboring property is covered in ivy and nobody maintains that boundary, you should understand that you’re probably going to be maintaining your side.
Same thing with a greenbelt or heavily vegetated slope.
You control the property you own.
You don’t necessarily control everything surrounding it.
That’s a recurring theme in landscaping that I think homebuyers overlook.
The condition of the landscape around your property can affect how much work it takes to maintain the landscape inside your property.
Then There’s the Slope
Put a mature ivy infestation on a steep Seattle slope and the project changes again.
Everything gets harder.
Workers have to maintain footing.
Cut vegetation has to be moved.
Waste has to travel from wherever we’re working to wherever the truck is parked.
Equipment access may be limited.
You might have retaining walls, trees, rocks and other vegetation that needs to remain.
That’s why looking at square footage alone doesn’t tell you what an ivy removal project costs.
Five hundred square feet of ivy on flat ground with direct access is one project.
Five hundred square feet on a steep backyard slope behind a narrow house can be a completely different project.
Same plant.
Same square footage.
Different job.
“I’ll Just Do It Myself”
You absolutely can.
I want to make that clear.
If you don’t hire a contractor, your contractor cost is zero.
That’s one of the great things about landscaping.
A lot of it can be DIY.
Buy some good gloves.
Get appropriate hand tools.
Start cutting and pulling.
Work section by section.
Learn what you’re looking for.
Dispose of the vegetation properly.
Then monitor the area afterward.
For a smaller ivy problem, that may be exactly what I would recommend.
But there’s another cost homeowners sometimes forget:
your time.
Let’s say removing the ivy takes you four weekends.
Are you okay with that?
Maybe you are.
Some people love working outside.
Maybe your dad comes over and helps.
Maybe your brother helps.
Maybe you have friends who somehow enjoy spending Saturday ripping ivy out of the ground.
Great.
Buy lunch and get to work.
But maybe Saturday is the only day you have with your kids.
Maybe you’d rather take Junior to the park.
Maybe you work 50 hours a week and the last thing you want to do Sunday morning is spend six hours pulling ivy.
There’s no correct answer.
It’s an exchange.
Time. Money. Labor. Tools. Convenience.
You decide which one is worth more to you.
That’s Really What You’re Paying a Contractor For
Sometimes homeowners get sticker shock from landscaping.
I understand it.
You look at ivy and think:
It’s a plant. Why does this cost thousands of dollars?
But the plant isn’t what you’re paying for.
You’re paying for the amount of work required to change the property from its current condition to the condition you want.
Someone has to cut it.
Someone has to pull it.
Someone has to dig.
Someone has to move the material.
Someone has to load it.
A truck has to haul it.
The waste has to go somewhere.
Tools and equipment have to get to the property.
And if it’s taken five or ten years for a landscape to reach its current condition, you’re sometimes paying a crew to reverse years of accumulated growth in a very short period of time.
You can absolutely do that work yourself.
But the work doesn’t disappear because you decide not to hire somebody.
It just becomes your work.
Renters Should Pay Attention Too
I’ve seen another version of this problem with renters.
Someone rents a house.
The lease puts some level of yard maintenance on the tenant.
The yard starts getting away from them.
A year goes by.
Then another.
Eventually the ivy, weeds, blackberry and shrubs are completely overgrown.
Now they’re moving out and suddenly they’re trying to restore several years of landscape growth on a property they don’t even own.
Then they call a landscaper and get sticker shock.
If you’re renting a house and the lease makes you responsible for landscaping, understand what you’re accepting.
A small lawn and three shrubs are one thing.
A large yard with mature ivy, blackberry and overgrown vegetation is another.
Again:
Know what you’re taking responsibility for.
Get a Landscaping Opinion Before You Buy
If you’re buying an expensive property with a seriously overgrown landscape, I think getting a landscaping opinion before closing can be money well spent.
You have people inspect the roof.
Plumbing.
Electrical.
Foundation.
HVAC.
Why wouldn’t you spend a little time understanding a landscape that could require thousands of dollars of work?
I’m not saying every house needs a professional landscape inspection.
If there’s a tiny patch of ivy next to the garage, you probably don’t need to turn this into a federal investigation.
Use some common sense.
But if you’re looking at a million-dollar property with 2,000 square feet of mature ivy covering the backyard, climbing trees and running down a steep slope?
I’d want to know what I’m buying.
Get an estimate.
Understand the access.
Understand what removal might involve.
Understand what needs to happen with the trees.
Understand what’s growing on neighboring properties.
Then decide what you want to do.
Maybe you negotiate.
Maybe you budget for it.
Maybe you DIY it.
Maybe you leave most of it alone.
Maybe you decide the house isn’t worth the maintenance.
That’s your decision.
The important part is that it’s an informed decision.
More Plants Usually Mean More Maintenance
This is something I’ve learned from maintaining properties.
People often want elaborate landscapes.
Lots of shrubs.
Lots of ground cover.
Lots of different plants.
Trees.
Hedges.
Garden beds everywhere.
It can look beautiful.
But every plant you add to a landscape is something that grows.
Growth means maintenance.
That’s why I’m a big believer in practical landscapes.
Keep what you actually enjoy.
Give plants enough room.
Keep access reasonable.
Don’t fill every square foot simply because you can.
And be especially careful when you’re inheriting a landscape filled with aggressive plants that somebody else chose decades ago.
You’re inheriting their landscaping decisions.
Ivy Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Buy the House
I wouldn’t walk away from a good house simply because there’s ivy.
That’s not my point.
I’ve seen plenty of ivy projects that are completely manageable.
Even large infestations can often be reclaimed with enough work and the right approach.
The question is what your particular property requires.
How much ivy is there?
How mature is it?
What’s underneath it?
Is it climbing trees?
Is it against structures?
Is it coming from neighboring property?
Is the yard flat?
Is it a slope?
Can equipment reach it?
How much material needs to be hauled?
And what do you want the landscape to look like afterward?
Those answers determine whether you’re looking at a weekend DIY project or a significant landscape restoration.
Know What You’re Buying
That’s the point of this entire series.
I’m not trying to convince everybody to hire Neat & Tidy Landscaping.
Our service might not fit your budget.
Your project might not fit what we do.
You might be perfectly capable of doing the work yourself.
That’s fine.
I want you to understand the problem.
Because once you’ve worked in landscaping long enough, you start seeing properties differently.
I don’t just see a green backyard anymore.
I see what’s actually growing there.
I see the maintenance.
I see the access.
I see the waste.
I see the labor.
And I start thinking about what that property will require five or ten years from now.
Homeownership already comes with maintenance.
Roof.
Plumbing.
Electrical.
Paint.
Appliances.
The landscape isn’t any different.
So if you’re looking at a house covered in ivy, don’t panic.
Identify it.
Figure out how much there is.
Look at the trees.
Look over the fence.
Look at the slope.
Think about what you want removed.
Get a professional opinion if the problem is substantial.
And then price the time, labor and maintenance into your decision.
Because when you buy the house, you don’t just inherit the kitchen, the roof and the mortgage. You inherit everything growing around it too.
Field Notes
This article is based on my experience evaluating, maintaining and restoring residential landscapes in the Seattle area. Every ivy project is different. Age, density, square footage, terrain, access, trees, structures, neighboring vegetation, waste hauling and the homeowner’s desired scope can substantially change the work involved.
The purpose of this article isn’t to suggest that every property with ivy is a bad purchase or that professional removal is always necessary. It’s to help homeowners recognize the maintenance they’re inheriting before they buy—or rent—a property.