You can pick up a herbicide at just about any garden center/hardware store/home store. Get the kind that you can dab on with a small brush like Round Up or something like that. Only dab the Ivy very carefully. You may need a couple applications but it should do the job.

Hi

I would use glyphosate , but with ivy the leaves are tough

I think you have cut it all down ? so any new growth leave it to grow a little then just paint in on the leaves , the good thing with glyphosate it is inert if coming in to contact with the soil so wont affect the yew , also I would feed the yew as a treat it will soon green up I would use a quality rose granular fertiliser it ticks all the boxes, just sprinkle around the Yew tree about 1 meter , if it doesn't rain give it a good watering can once a week.

Gg

if you have a 'stump' then use sbk stump killer.

Hi Seaburngirl

they all contain glyphosate SBK Brushwood Killer

"The best time to apply stump killers is from autumn to winter. Avoid treatment in spring and early summer when the sap is rising"

so best treating the leaves as they appear

Gg

You may find that the shock of your drastic hack has killed the ivy. We cut down a large ivy to ground level when we first moved in here, expecting to have to use stump killer, but it never grew back.

I have been told this evening that if you hack down your ivy and just leave the stump then the plant will die which is what Rosierose has stated. I've put some Jeyes Fluid down as well so we'll see how things turn out. Thanks again for all your advice.

Those Yew shrubs are really tough. I think they'll be OK. I have one on my property that's older then me. I don't know how many times I've hacked it down, but it always grows back like nothing happened.

Gnarlygnome; SBK is triclopyr - Round up has a stump killer which uses high strength glyphosate. I stick to SBK, personally, much more effective in my experience.

Well, dead is dead. I would only recommend something that I have used and know to work. It's dead.

thanks Bamboo , just had good read up on it , not good to use if you have ducks in the same area but ok for bees

Gg

Not good round fish either, I don't think, but then that's true of glyphosate too...

That's why you should use a brush and be very careful with it. Only dab the stump - that's it. It will do the job. Be careful not to spill it...and don't drink it. :)