East Dulwich, London, September 2023
On the corner of the street, a mass of ivy was spilling over a wall. It was an explosion of leaves and flowers, sound and smell. The flowers were alive with insects: hoverflies, honeybees, bumblebees, and that ivy specialist, the ivy bee.
I hadn’t seen many ivy bees before, and wasn’t aware they were now so far into the centre of London. They nectared in a frantic fashion, with at least two having been captured by a massive garden spider that scarpered when it realised how close I was to its web.
At this time of year very few plants are flowering, and none like the ivy can. Even so, ivy in London has an awful reputation. People hate it, calling it a parasite and tree killer.
Some years ago a man gave me his opinion by leaning in and whispering that he had seen it sucking the sap from a tree, like it was some dark truth kept hidden from the world.
In reality it’s not a tree killer and it’s not a parasite. But like so many things in society now, people will believe what they want, regardless of the facts.
In a wood near to this jungle of ivy, mature growths of it have been found hacked and severed by visitors acting on their instincts without reason (or permission).
I remember a local tree surgeon unloading on me one morning when I was in the woods about to start a working day, telling me how terrible ivy was at that location. I was taken aback by the man’s strength of feeling and let him say his piece. When he had finished I asked if I could go and start my day’s work.
“You didn’t like that, did you?” he said.
Is it any wonder tree surgeons don’t like ivy? I’m sure many appreciate its place in the ecosystem, a habitat for bats, birds, insects and autumnal nectar for pollinators. But to a tree surgeon it makes your work so much harder, what is already one of the most dangerous and brutal jobs available in the UK. I suppose I had just expected someone who works with trees all day to have a little more imagination and ecological flexibility.
I’ve made the faux-pas while leading guided walks of talking about the value of ivy nectar to honeybees and been informed that it’s not so good for them. One very polite beekeeper corrected me and said that the nectar can crystallise too quickly in the hive and leave the bees to starve. For wild pollinators there is no such problem, of course. The beekeeper said the issue was mostly where the only nectar source was ivy.
Should ivy be cut off trees in some cases? Of course. But is it often framed for crimes it didn’t commit? Yes, all the time.
I remember driving with my parents through Ireland back in 2008, when I knew very little about trees. Ivy was everywhere and I worried it was going to harm the trees. I later learned that the story is different.
Ivy often grows on trees that are in decline, meaning more light comes through the canopy, encouraging the growth upwards. Then when the tree does die, there stands the ivy, ‘throttling’, ‘suffocating’, ‘killing’, as some hyperbolise. In high winds ivy can act like a sail, and trees do come down.
In my experience it is often life-giving.
People come to nature looking for absolutes, but just end up finding more questions and often being humbled. The trick is to embrace the ambiguity, your own lack of knowledge and mastery of any given subject.
Personally, I was thankful for that final flush of insect buzz on an unseasonably warm September morning. Who do I thank for that? That’ll be the ivy.
Thanks for reading.
Daniel Greenwood 