I remember it caught my eye the minute we pulled up to the house. A dark green blanket of English Ivy spread out like a classy greeting to our new home. It aged the ten-year-old house in a way that felt familiar to me, made it feel settled and mature like the places where I grew up.
Once we moved in, I smiled every time I pulled into our driveway and saw the ivy where others would have cut down the trees and planted grass. I immediately started expanding the shade garden, creating room to incorporate new plants. Coral Bells, Sweet William, Hostas, Vinca, Ostrich Ferns, wild flowers I transplanted from a favorite spot at camp, and Daylilies in the one section that gets a little sun. Painting a picture with plants just like I had watched my mom and her sisters do forever.
Never mind all that, what was always at the forefront of the garden was the ivy.
We’ve lived in the house for seven years now. Hard to believe. Over that time, as you may have guessed, my love for the ivy grew into a full-on battle to keep it from taking over every last inch of soil and creeping upward to pull down our house. For the last several years, I’ve been giving it the stink-eye. Tired of its bullying behavior, I kept threatening to pull out every last trace.
I’m no dummy. I know that ivy roots grow deep. Tough, persistent and sneaky. Which is why I never got around to making good on my threat. I’d pull up a few shoots here and there, clear another small spot and put in some more Vinca hoping it could hold its own. But mostly, the ivy was winning and I just couldn’t find the energy to keep it in its place.
I’m tempted to keep using the ivy as a metaphor for where I am in my life without really naming it. I am, instead, going to just put it out there and say the time finally came to tackle some roots.
Like a gardening zombie, I found myself walking into the house one day and then suddenly turning back. Before I knew it, I was yanking masses of roots from the ground. It was like one of those never ending bowls of spaghetti. It didn’t matter how much I pulled out, the carpet of ivy never seemed to shrink. I would look behind me at the mound I was creating just to reassure myself that I was making progress.
Eventually, my bare hands were raw, my muscles were aching and I gave up for the day. Satisfied but knowing there was still plenty of work to do.
Later, a friend noticed my grubby fingernails when I went to pick up my daughter. I told him what I had been doing and he quickly replied that I needed to get myself a big bottle of Roundup and kill those roots to the core. Otherwise, no matter how much I worked, new shoots would continue to pop-up forever. Plus, ivy roots can really damage your foundation.
I didn’t respond. I knew poison wasn’t the answer. I needed to win with my own ungloved hands.
For two weeks, I tugged and dug and piled and hauled. There was an immediate sense of satisfaction in finding a big mother root and pulling at it until it finally gave in, it’s long, snaky tail revealing itself from under the soil. My shoulders were sore. My back was screaming. My fingernails were beyond hope. There was something deeply satisfying in feeling my progress so physically.
A week ago, I knew I was done. I was confident that I hadn’t cleared all of the ivy roots, but I knew I had made enough progress that whatever was still hiding underground was manageable. I called it good and covered the newly naked soil with mulch. And then I stared a lot. At the empty space where there was once the thing I had loved and hated. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I felt slightly overwhelmed at the blank canvas.
Yesterday, a different kind of gardener emerged. Confident and willing to go with a trial-and-error approach. All of the lovely perennials that I had been adding to the shade garden had now multiplied and were ready to be divided. I took my shovel and started transplanting. As I dug deep holes where the ivy once grew, I encountered more roots. Big, strong, stubborn. Some I yanked out. Some I plopped a plant on top of knowing that more ivy shoots would someday emerge. I’d have to deal with them when the time came.
That’s the thing. You have to decide how much getting-rid-of is enough. You have to figure out what you can live with. Deep roots can be tough on your foundation. But sometimes they are what’s holding the foundation together.
