What can I plant at the base of a west-facing, ivy-covered wall? I’d like something edible.
Ivy tends to be a giant slug and snail hotel, with all that lovely dense foliage where they can hang out and wait till you’ve planted something tender to eat. If you want to go for edibles, choose something slug-resistant and perennial rather than annual veg that will have a hard time competing with the ivy roots.
Gooseberries and black, red and white currants – trained against the wall as cordons if space is limited – would work well on your wall. Cordon-trained plants can have one, two or three stems per plant. For a single cordon, after planting, cut back the main vertical stem by half of the previous season’s new growth, then cut all the other shoots back down to one bud. Remove buds at the bottom 10cm (4in) of the trunk. The summer after planting, reduce all the new growth on the side shoots by pinching back to three or four leaves. Repeat this every summer.
Mulch around the bushes with a thick layer of compost so that they’ve got something to lock in moisture around their roots, and feed them over the summer, repeating every autumn and spring.
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