When it comes to plants with bad reputations – be that ivy, Leyland cypress or red valerian – we’d be better not to judge them too quickly. Live and let live, says Ken Thompson, and the wildlife will thank you for it
ILLUSTRATION JILL CALDER
We can argue about the definition of a weed, but part of it is surely a plant’s ability to make itself thoroughly, immovably at home, often despite your best efforts to persuade it to go away. Among native plants, there can hardly be a better illustration of this than ivy. If you don’t like ivy, the bad news is that it’s also one of the main beneficiaries of climate change. As an evergreen climber of mostly subtropical affinities, ivy was never very fond of cold winters. But now that such things are increasingly rare, ivy is able to grow almost all year round in warmer parts of the country. In fact, right across Europe, ivy is now more abundant where it grows, and grows in more places, and climate change is certainly to blame.
And yet, despite a reputation as something of an unwelcome thug, it’s hard to imagine a plant that’s more valuable to wildlife throughout the year. In autumn, ivy provides the year’s last great nectar harvest. Ivy is so widespread that bees generally don’t need to go far from the hive to find it, and studies show that honeybees travel about half as far in September to find food as they do in the summer. In fact, hives with plenty of ivy around are more likely to survive the winter. Honeybees also need pollen to raise their young, and hives that end the year with healthy pollen stocks can get going faster in the spring. Most of that late pollen comes from ivy.
Ivy flowers are too late for most bumblebees, but they’re also visited by wasps (wasps are wildlife too) and by late-flying hoverflies and butterflies – a sunny patch of flowering ivy can be a magnet for red admirals and small tortoiseshells. Ivy also now has its very own bee: Colletes hederae (ivy bee) is a solitary mining bee that was first recorded in Dorset in 2001 and has now spread as far north as Cumbria and County Durham.
An ivy-covered wall, fence or shed provides winter shelter for no end of wildlife, including spiders, ladybirds and lacewings, and perhaps one or two of that hardy band of butterflies that overwinter as adults: red admiral, brimstone, comma, peacock and small tortoiseshell.
Fat-rich ivy berries are a vital winter food for blackbirds and thrushes, and in spring and summer, ivy provides ideal nesting habitat for many birds, including wrens, dunnocks and finches. Dense evergreens such as ivy are particularly useful for birds that
