A workshop near me is clothed in ivy like a shawl. It’s tightly woven into the building’s fabric and in autumn it shimmers with bees buzzing as they sup up the late harvest from its flowers. Ivy is truly a sight. It’s very good for pollinators, offering an excellent late source of nectar for many insects, notably bees, but also larval food for the beautiful holly blue butterfly (there are two generations of larvae a year and the second loves to dine on ivy). It’s a dense habitat for many others, too: peer inside any older specimen and you’ll find it full of life, from spiders to bird nests.
Finally, it has beautiful black berries that offer an invaluable food source for birds through winter, and well into spring and early summer. But, as anyone with a wall of ivy knows, it has a habit of using its aerial roots to cling on to whatever it climbs and then stubbornly refusing to let go, which can be a disaster for old mortar. There is a way around this: not all ivies have to climb.
Ivies have two phases of growth: juvenile and adult. In their young stage, they send out long stems that seek vertical surfaces, clinging on with their adventitious roots (roots that grow from the stem rather than below the soil). Once the plants mature, usually after 10 years, their growth switches to the adult phase. The leaves change shape, usually losing their lobes, and the growth becomes shrubby. This is when they start flowering and fruiting.
There are a few varieties that are perpetually in their adult phase, such as Hedera helix ‘Arborescens’ and ‘Ice Cream’ and H. colchica ‘Arborescens’. These remain as bushy, non-climbing forms and flower every year. Essentially, they are small shrubs.
H. helix ‘Arborescens’ has large glossy dark-green leaves, grows to about 3ft tall, and tolerates a wide range of conditions, from deep shade to full sun, as long as there’s some moisture retention in the soil. ‘Ice Cream’ has heavily variegated green leaves with cream margins. It grows into a neat mound, 2-3ft tall and wide after about 10 years. It needs light conditions but will tolerate dappled shade. A similar bushy form is the Persian ivy, H. colchica ‘Arborescens’, which is not completely hardy so will need a sheltered spot. It’s not so easy to get hold of, but it’s a truly handsome plant.
These shrubby ivies are perfect for smaller spaces: they offer pleasing, evergreen backdrop to spring ephemerals and are ideal under deciduous trees. They also provide food and habitat for wildlife – and you’ll never have to peel them off a wall.
