Fencing fun

Hi,
I've been wanting to replace one side of my fence for ages it's full of holes and plants are growing through it and making it worse.
Spent the day yesterday locked in battle with 2 lots of ivy with stems as thick as my wrist (I have small wrists). I did eventually win but what a struggle.
I had wanted to pull the ivy off intact and then reattach to the new fence but this proved impossible as it had grown through and into the fence so much.
I ended up digging out as much of the root as possible although it may well grow back.
Is there a nice dark leaved variety I could replace it with that won't attack the new panels so much? It makes a nice haven for spiders and other beasties and is a bit of colour in the (very) long winter months.

Cheers

 

Hi,
I was wanting to replace with one that might not be so destructive.

Cheers
D

 

I don't think there is an ivy that isn't destructive or less rampant. I would never introduce it to my garden as it's so difficult to eradicate once there.

 

Ah, fencing is man's form of knitting.
Knit one pearl one stitch two together.
Post two, arras rail two, and feather board ten in the upright position.
Now that's not hard is it?

 

Agree with Sheal.

 

i know the feeling Exlabman, we had a 'monster' of an Ivy that turned out to be even bigger than we had thought as not only had it taken over a huge area of our garden but it had grown up & over the back wall & unbeknown to us was at least three times the size on the other side of the wall what a job that was let me tell you! we cut it down to a stump & encouraged it to regrow as it is a lovely large leaved dark green ivy, i keep it extremely well pruned now as you can imagine & tbh its never looked so good...even if i do say so myself
i have to say though it did fight back big time my poor brother came out in a terrible rash the next day... what with it being such a sunny hot day (remember those) he'd been topless too so maximum skin exposure to the Ivy the poor guy, it took forever to finally go too. both my mum & i were both perfectly fine, strange how some people have a sensitivity to stuff like that isn't it?