WASHINGTON — Environmental groups are working to ban the sale of two types of Ivy in Washington state. They say English and Atlantic Ivy are invasive, and that those plants slowly kill everything around them.
The petitions for the ban have gone to the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) for consideration.
English and Atlantic Ivy are common: you might even have it in your own backyard, but soon the sale of both plants could be prohibited. Advocates say that is the first step to stopping the invasive growth.
Wrapped around trees, covering parks, and scaling city blocks, ivy has a tight grip on Western Washington.
This coming as a stark reality check from Whatcom Million Trees Project founder, Michael Feerer.
“That’s affecting thousands of trees throughout western Washington ranging along the coast from Seattle up here to Bellingham,” Feerer said.
You might be wondering how ivy impacts you? Feerer said this is everyone’s problem.
“As soon as it gets up in the tree canopy, that’s when the tree is threatened. It will get top heavy then in a windstorm, which we seem to have a lot of, then it will snap off the top of the tree,” Feerer said.
The snapped tree potentially falling on cars and homes, costing you thousands of dollars in repairs. Fortunately, there is a way to prevent that.
“All you have to do is cut around the tree, cut the ivy stems at waist height and peel down clear a little around the base,” Feerer said. “You’ve basically rescued the tree right there.”
However, Feerer says the issue needs to be cut at the root. That’s where the sale ban comes in.
If the plants are put on the state’s “prohibited plants list”, nurseries can no longer sell them, but he told KIRO 7 that the ivy hasn’t been as popular in at least a decade.
In fact, he tells us there are several other ground cover plants available for sale that people are buying instead.
Scott Brooks with WSDA says they have never seen so much support for banning a plant.
“We have Received petitions for 19 plants, two of which are these ivies we are talking about today, we hope to finalize everything this spring,” Brooks said.
Both ivies are already on the state’s noxious weed list, but if they become prohibited, Washington will be the second state to do so along with Oregon.
The meeting to discuss which plants will get a spot on the prohibited list is coming up this spring. If the ivy ban is approved, the plants will be taken off nursery shelves immediately.
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