Ivy can get quite bad press as it is believed it can damage walls and fences and strangles trees. If your structure is solid with no cracks it is just using it for support and it has its own roots and feeds off its own nutrients so does not interfere with trees. Using the tree for support allows it to reach the sunlight. Trees that have ivy attached to them have huge wildlife benefits. During the autumn and winter, the berries, pollen and nectar are a valuable source of food to birds and insects when food is scarce and provides shelter to them and bats. The insects gorge on the highly nutritional berries before going into hibernation and it is a valuable food source to some butterfly and moth larvae. So before stripping ivy off a wall or a tree. Please take on board how valuable it is to wildlife this time of year and does it really need to go?
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