If you’ve only got a little ivy—say, a patch around your mailbox or a few vines climbing your porch—you can get hands-on. I’m talking about good old-fashioned manual removal. Put on some thick gardening gloves (ivy can irritate your skin like a bad sunburn) and start pulling.
The trick is to grab the main vine, not the little tendrils. It’s like picking up a garden hose by the nozzle instead of the middle—it comes up in one satisfying piece. Pull slowly and steadily, and you’ll dislodge the whole network of roots. I did this once on a Saturday morning, and I felt like a hero taking down a green dragon.
Just know: you have to get every bit of root. Miss one, and that ivy will pop back up like a bad joke at a family dinner.
