GORDON D’ARCY

BY GORDON D’ARCY

NATURE’S Glitt ering

SHAWL

IVY IS AMONG OUR MOST IMPORTANT PLANTS FOR BIODIVERSITY

Many nature-lovers are at war. ‘It’s invading the country; it’s destroying buildings; it’s choking the trees and hauling them down before our eyes’. Most people – those with neat properties at any rate – seem to have a revulsion towards it. Despite being ‘opportunistic’ rather than ‘invasive’ and decidedly native, there is no doubt that even the mention of ivy engenders widespread hostility.

Let’s be honest. Ivy will cover a forest oor especially if there is no light getting down to promote ground ora. Sitka spruce plantations are often carpeted with a monoculture of ivy, at the expense of owers. And ivy will insinuate itself into crumbling lime mortar over time, even to the extent of destabilising old buildings. However, judicious base cutting will remedy the issue with little e ort. Some people believe that ivy on a gable wall may help to keep a house warm and dry while others see it as a source of damp, keeping away the drying e ect of the wind. On a drystone wall a blanket of ivy can obscure ne stonework but it may be the only thing

 Ivy Flowers

preventing the wall from collapsing! A storm-felled tree is often found to be covered in ivy. But was this the cause of its fall? If it’s an old beech, rotten at the centre – possibly. Beech has a shallow rooting system (unlike that of oak) and may rot, unseen, on the inside. In addition, being comparatively short-lived and often planted on a raised bank at the edge of an old estate, beeches may be prone to falling, especially when top-heavy with ivy. The scourge of ash dieback infestation has presented us with a new arboreal hazard. Despite a sound rooting system (with supporting taproot) affected ash trees do shed branches and some, top-heavy with ivy, have fallen during winter storms. Unfortunately, such incidences may well increase as the disease spreads. Currently, the standard means of curtailing the spread of the disease is by taking out trees, healthy and otherwise, in a ‘buffer-zone’ containment programme. Those concerned about the danger posed by affected ash trees should, nevertheless, exercise a degree of restraint since partially affected trees may live on, unthreateningly for years.

In a positive sense, ivy’s contribution to the rest of nature is extraordinary. At all stages of growth it gives sustenance to myriad insects. Its robust leaf clusters provide reliable shelter for overwintering butterflies and moths while its grey-green flowers are an important nectar source for hoverflies, bees and wasps. By late summer nectar-hungry red admirals can be seen decorating wall-tops draped with ivy.

The hard green fruits gradually blacken and swell through the winter providing a much-needed food to birds. At least twelve species rely on the ivy harvest: overwintering redwings and fieldfares, thrushes, blackbirds, pigeons and a variety of finches are the chief beneficiaries. Attractive as they look however, ivy berries are not safe for human consumption. Small birds such as wrens, robins and dunnocks make their nests in ivy and those untidy nest-builders, wood pigeons, do so too. Ivy’s food value is by no means confined to wildlife; livestock such as goats, sheep, donkeys, horses and even cows (discouraged by dairy farmers) will browse on ivy.

Ivy also has cultural connections. With its distinctive leaves and vine-like stems it has long been a favourite art motif, frequently found as decoration on the margins of Medieval manuscripts and ecclesiastical masonry. Intertwined with holly, ivy has long been a favourite constituent of wreaths. In Gaelic times ivy was much appreciated not only as livestock food but also for its beauty. An early Irish poem references ivy, ‘big as a man’, (presumably a reference to the plant’s girth). In another it is praised as ‘the shadowy genius of the wood’ and in the 7th century Suibhne Geilt, ivy is ‘familiar in the dusky wood’. Anglicized from the Irish as Inaun, ivy occurs in many place names. On the north side of the Burren Gleninagh (the ivy glen) is carpeted with the plant to this day.

In Ireland we take this prolific plant for granted. In Europe, however, it is most abundant in the west, proliferating under the influence of the moist Atlantic while in eastern Europe it is decidedly scarce. Interestingly, (according to botanist Charles Nelson), Ireland has two (almost indistinguishable) ivies- Hedera helix and Hedera hibernica - the latter being the Atlantic or ‘Irish ivy’. Can we therefore simply dismiss ivy as a scourge, threatening to engulf our gardens, our woodlands, our homes…demanding our unremitting control? Or can we reimagine ivy, more affectionately perhaps, as nature’s ‘glittering shawl’?