English Ivy Removal

WMTP Tree Protection

Removing English Ivy From Threatened Trees

Innovative Initiatives to Urgently Remove & Diminish English Ivy That’s Killing Thousands of Trees

PAGE CONTENTS

Introduction

Thousands of mature healthy trees locally are threatened with premature death by English ivy and its variant Atlantic/Boston ivy. (For simplicity, we’ll only write “English ivy” below.)

English ivy is not native to the Pacific Northwest but thrives in our coastal region — especially along the edges of parks, trails, Greenways, open spaces, and roads.

Many home and commercial parcels also have extensive amounts of English ivy. Why? For decades English ivy was sold and promoted by nurseries and landscapers as a quick, easy groundcover solution since it’s so aggressive. Little did they realize the huge negative implications of that for our bioregion!

Here’s the problem: While rapidly spreading on the ground, English Ivy opportunistically climbs the trunks of any tree in its path and becomes a slow, silent tree killer. Virtually every tree burdened with English Ivy will prematurely die in a small number of years. All it takes is for the ivy to reach the tree’s canopy, thus competing for sunlight with the tree’s leaves. This weakens the tree and can make the tree so top-heavy that it becomes prone to snapping off at the top during a windstorm (which in our new climate era are increasingly severe and frequent).

As a result, English ivy causes millions of dollars of damage in Washington, negatively impacting virtually every community’s climate resilience by killing trees, degrading forests, and creating vast monoculture understory areas that do not support biodiversity.

English ivy removal is a very direct, positive climate action to ensure our trees can continue to capture carbon, support habitat, reduce extreme heat effects, buffer flooding, and provide many other benefits that are increasingly essential in our new climate era.

WMTP has many different initiatives and efforts to reduce the ivy problem. We’ve even succeeded at a statewide level, as detailed below…

Statewide English Ivy Sales Ban

As we led the charge locally over the past few years to reduce ivy’s impact on local trees, we were dismayed to realize that most nurseries, box stores and wholesalers STILL sold those plants even though many other invasives could not be sold.

We discovered that the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) semi-annually reviews which invasive plants will be prohibited from being sold statewide. Their Prohibited Plants and Seeds list applies to all nurseries, box stores, wholesalers, and other plant merchants within the state.

In early 2023, we decided to take an audacious step — one that most people thought had little chance of success — of stepping through the WSDA’s long formal rulemaking process to add the ivies to their Prohibited Plants and Seeds list.

To make the case for an ivy sales ban, WMTP collected 1,400+ petition signatures (online and written), wrote dozens of emails to policymakers, and coordinated with several other environmental nonprofits and other advocates in the state. WSDA staff actually welcomed what became the largest public participation they had ever experienced on a prohibited plants issue.

Along the way, we met with local nurseries to learn more about any potential economic impacts of the ban, which could be a deciding factor for the WSDA. Nurseries we talked with confirmed that a statewide ivy sales ban would create no negative economic impact because staff simply can point customers to non-destructive ground covers they also offer. Some, such as Garden Spot Nursery in Bellingham, even agreed to voluntarily no sell the ives anymore! We documented all of these economic findings to the WSDA.

Now for our happy results which occurred almost two years after we began the rulemaking process: Due largely to the written documentation and oral testimony provided by WMTP and others who we encouraged to participate, the ivy sales ban was approved July 9, 2025 and is effective on August 9, 2025! WE DID IT! Washington has become the second state in the nation to enact such a ban. (Oregon was the first, many years ago.) The ban is an essential component to gradually reducing this very damaging invasive in our state. Thank you all who participated in this tree-saving advocacy effort!

Ivy Eyes Mini-Documentary

We are thrilled to have worked with local filmmaker Bright Productions to produce Ivy Eyes: Growing a Movement to Save Trees in Whatcom County. This is a compelling, playful, informative, 12-minute documentary about the immense English ivy problem in our region. Please click here or in the Youtube movie window below to watch it!

English Ivy Mapping

WMTP volunteers with “ivy eyes” have been walking local parks, Greenways, neighborhoods, roadways and right-of-ways to find clusters of English ivy on trees.

To date we’ve located over 3,200 mature trees that have ivy climbing up the trunk, as you can see in our handy Ivy Removal Progress Map. You can also see where we’ve cleared ivy from 1,940+ of those trees. The map is interactive — click to zoom in and look around!

This map and its linked database helps us to monitor our progress, plan future work parties, and know where to periodically re-check trees to hold follow-up waves of removal as needed to ensure English ivy stays away from them.

Now we are filling in data gaps (such as private parcels in Bellingham neighborhoods) and expanding outward into rural areas. We anticipate we’ll locate and map thousands more affected trees over time within Whatcom County.

Know of an ivy-burdened tree cluster that’s not on our map? Please contact us, stating the approximate location and quantity of affected trees! (Here are simple steps to copy/paste a map pin of the ivy’s location from your phone.)

Ivy Removal Work Parties

Since mid-2022 (except during late Fall – Spring tree planting season) we’ve held numerous WMTP volunteer work parties to remove English ivy from mature trees. Typically 15-25 volunteers armed with hand clippers and loppers work enthusiastically and satisfyingly to save these trees.

Join us at one of these fun ivy removal events! It’s easy, all-ages work (no tree climbing or special skills needed) As a bonus, you’ll learn how to clear ivy properly from your own yard, too!

Printable Home Guide to English Ivy Removal

Want to see step-by-step how to easily remove English ivy from trees in your yard? Download our one-page WMTP English Ivy Removal Steps PDF.

Most homeowners can remove English ivy themselves or with minimal guidance from WMTP. All that’s needed is to carefully remove English ivy from a tree’s trunk — only from waist or shoulder height down. All higher strands will die and fall off over several months.

It’s also a good idea to clear English ivy that’s on the ground to a minimum of 3′ away from the tree’s trunk, giving the tree at least a few years before English ivy may climb the trunk again. Better of course would be to remove ALL of the English ivy from a yard, since on the ground it dominates the understory and prevents other plants and biodiversity from occurring.

For more removal details and suggestions, see the above PDF.

Community Education About English Ivy

Many people don’t realize English ivy will prematurely kill virtually every tree it climbs. To build awareness, WMTP gives frequent ivy-removal presentations at local libraries, neighborhood association meetings, clubs, and other venues. Plus we feature it often in our social media and in news media coverage.

Want us to speak to your group? Please ask — we’ll be happy to! We’ll show our cool Ivy Eyes documentary, too!

Volunteer Opportunities

• Want to join any of our cool tree-saving efforts above? Please let us know!

• Want to volunteer in a future WMTP ivy removal work party? Meet other tree-lovers, enjoy fresh air, have fun, and contribute to a an important cause. Please join our work party contact list!

Related Links/Resources

• Ivy Eyes 12-minute documentary
• WMTP’s English Ivy Removal Progress in Whatcom County
• English Ivy Removal Step
• How to copy/paste a map pin of ivy location
• English Ivy Mailbox Flyer for Neighbors
• Petition to Prohibit the Sale of English Ivy in Washington State