Problems with the Pear Tree : (

You probably need to cut the main stem of the Ivy. That will kill it off.
Sorry I don't know anything about pear trees

If that was mine Claire I would cut through the stems of the Ivy at the bottom and let the Ivy die off naturally.

Claire, we have monster ivy in our garden too, growing up through a hawthorne tree in the neighbouring garden (it overhangs our fence). It's very hard to get rid of so I wish you luck.

We were given the same advice....chop it at it's roots and keep at it. It chokes everything in it's path as you are finding out. I have left ivy on our fence (you can see it in some of my blogs) as it's all that's holding up the oldest section of our wooden fencing...lol It will be tamed as much as possible and I am planning a woodland/shade garden along that old fencing and along the back of the garden on one side.

I hope you get a yield of pears again this year...looks hopeful from your photos :)

hi folks! Thanks for the advice, i tried sawing through the main stems of ivy on the main of the trunk, then i tried prizing it off with a hammer! Its so thick tho i whimped out and thought i'd start with the thiner ivy branches further up. Mums going to bring the bow saw and her big loppers down this weekend so we're going to give it another good going over then, fingers crossd we'll get through it and then leave it to die off like you've suggested.
= )

I have just recently gone through the same issure and apparently its a good idea to kill the roots off too, by drilling a small hole into the top of the root/ start of the stem line, pour glycophosphate weedkiller into the hole and plug it with some mud.. Thats what someone advised me as we have ivy growing up our ash trees at the bottom of the garden.. I have cleared all the ivy round the trunks as far as I could reach and have left the higher hard to reach ivy to die.. Its taken a couple of months and looks horrible as its gone all brown but hoping it will look better soon and at least the trees will survive now too..

If you can get the Ivy sorted and still want to keep the tree. Please be very careful and try and get rid of dead, diseased and inward facing branches. Right on the boundary too! You need someone who knows how to safely deal with larger branch removal. My OH was a senior scoutsmaster. He had done a lot of tree work on scout campsites like Bentley Copse, Woodlarks, Chigwell . Our pear trees were even bigger than yours. One was take down completely but finished off professionally, as the trunk was so thick. H&S and liabilities trip us up these days, so do be careful who does this task with you. Times have changed since we partied as we went!!!!

Whinstonlass i was having a look through your bolgs earlier and saw the fence in the garden with all the Ivy, wow! but i love the idea of the shade area, i'm sure it will look fab like the rest of your garden after the make over (kinda glad you went for the grass instead of the gravel, yes i have been doing some reading hehehe)

Madaboutgar i dont think i could bring myself to use pestercides i'm a sucker for hard work!
i had a look into the stuff you where suggesting and found this
http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/united-kingdom/22643-glyphosate-weed-killer-safe.html
i dont like the cats that poop in the garden but i put down lemon and lime peel to keep them out, dont want to kill em off! and being so close to the pears we're gonna eat i dont want it passed on to anyone :S

Dorjac i know what you mean about being so close to the border, over the winter one of the branches had fallen on to the other side which happens to be a day care centre for adults with server learning difficulties, i didn't realise until i climbed the tree and saw it for my self, they were to polite to come and ask us to take it back :( good job their green house is further down the bottom or it would have smashed it to bits - seriously not cool
i poped round there one night when all was quiet and took it back, it's going through the wood chipper this weekend when mum and dad come over.
what makes me mad tho is that the other flats above me must have been able to see it and just done nothing about it :(
i want to keep the tree but your right it dose need a hard prune to restore it, i dont know where to start tho and as it's a shared garden i doubt very much the maintence people will be interested in paying for such a job and theres no way i can afford it by myself :(

i'm really hoping that by getting rid of the ivy it will repair it's self, pickeled and poached pears ahoy then!
=)

We chopped our big tree down, as pears were bombing the roof of a shed of our new back neighbour after we bought land off a very neglectful owner. We had a ball cutting it down . Have remained friends ever since with those backneighbours even though we have both moved on. We still had 3 more huge very fruitful pears on site Loads of spare pears we left on the front garden wall in boxes. They all went. We had use of the land for a small yearly rent before we bought it. A cherry tree blew down in a gale and we sawed off the stump and had a solicitors letter! Trees can be tricky things.

morning Dorjac!
I get what you mean about tree's being tricky, and other people in the flats are aswell lol.
i got in touch with the council first tho to make sure there weren't any TPO's on the tree's surrounding our property, explained that i didn't want to cut them down completly just tidy them up to let more light in to the garden. The council said there weren't any TPO's so i started down one side (our side, acorrding to the lady next door to us. We have our side, she has her side? Long story lol) back in march, taking out the smaller tree's that had self seeded and taking off some of the lower branches on the much bigger tree's.
This was before the leaves came out, one of the ladies up stairs came and said it looks really bare out there, i replied thats because i've just taken all the ivy out and there aren't any leaves on the tree's yet! She didnt beleive i had been intouch with the council until i showed her the email and said i thought it was our side of the garden that we could look after it if we wanted. She said that they pay a gardener to look after the garden, i said well he's not looking after our side so i thought i would do some thing about it, wait a few weeks and all will be well. After the leaves came out on the tree's she did say it looked a lot better. You cant win with some people!
I dont think they like us much as our land lord rents all four rooms out in our flat and they have their own flats, the lady next door to us is finally coming around tho and we're often chatting about what needs doing. She made a complaint about the gardener, how he's been doing less and less each £40 visit, then he came last week and gave it a good going over, it shouldn't have to come to that tho.
I gave the lady up stairs my number and email and said if he wants to chat to me about anything or needs a hand with anything to get intouch, or knock on the door! He never has, he needs to buck up tho or they'll find some one else to do the job!
Sorry that was all rater long winded wasnt it : )

hope you get it sorted, as it does look like the ivy is killing the poor tree. The gardener should really sort it out , I think I would ask your landlord to give the gardener a bit of a nudge in the right direction..
I haven't put the weedkiller into the roots yet, just cut off the roots from the ivy going up the tree and cleared round the trunk as high as I could reach.. it was hard but very satifying work.. good luck
Jane

You must have needed to say it Claire. You are in a rented flat and trying to improve your surroundings, even though you rent your flat. I suppose it's difficult when a property has leaseholders and a renter as well. People get used to what they are seeing all the time. I was upset when they 'pruned' the cherry trees down the road, as they were in glowing autumn colour, last year. A friend of mine lived in a modern development of several blocks of flats. Some would not pay the service fees on time. The ex policeman who chaired the residents group used to get them to pay. He used to go out and ask the gardeners to do certain things regularly. Very politely but firmly. After he died the grounds were not as well kept and service fees were argued over too.

I'll be watching out to see how you get on with your battle of the ivy saga! Thanks for your comments Jane, about our old fencing and ivy you saw in my blog photos. I am hoping this week with the weather forecast being favourable I will be able to make a start on the shaded woodland garden and incorporate a small rockery. It will take some imagination to make my ivy and broken fence more interesting and attractive.

We all have our little niggles with the garden....sorry that you seem to find your neighbours a bit awkward. They should be thankful you are taking such an interest in the property. Good luck with your plans.