How to Grow English Ivy Indoors
If you have an English Ivy indoors, you already know how decorative and low maintenance it is.
If you don’t, have you ever considered growing one indoors?
My goal with this Blog, is to persuade you to grow an English Ivy indoors!
It’s a dainty trailing plant. Easy to care for and to style.
Ivies are often used to create whimsical topiaries, which can be done indoors as well, in a smaller scale.
This plant can grow lush, with beautiful, long stems.
Even if growing an English Ivy indoors is easy, it is important to know the few critical aspects to keep it healthy and happy!
So keep on reading!
I’ve had my English Ivy for almost four years. I keep it small in size by regularly pruning its stems and roots.
They can be hung on macrame plant hangers and let trail, enhancing the look of your walls.
english ivy light
The English Ivy is an evergreen vine native to most of Europe and Asia.
This plant can climb on all sort of surfaces; other plants and trees, buildings, and it can even spread horizontally as a ground-covering plant when no vertical surface is available to climb.
It’s a hardy plant, no doubt about that. In some areas is even considered a noxious weed; illegal to sell, transport and plant.
As much as this plant prefers to grow in moderate light and shade in nature, it definitely favours bright, indirect light when growing indoors.
Variegated English Ivies in particular, need plenty of bright, indirect light. Not enough light will revert their leaves variegation to solid green.
In general, not enough light will cause the stems of your English Ivy to grow long and leggy. On the other hand, direct sun light will scorch your plant’s leaves.
I keep my English Ivy hanging on a wall by an East facing window.
english ivy temperature and humidity
Air circulation is very important to be successful with an English Ivy indoors.
Proper air circulation is even more important than its temperature and humidity.
Because of this, avoid crowding your English Ivy with other plants.
While they could benefit from the humidity, the lack of air circulation is certainly detrimental to their health.
Also try your best to keep your plant in a cooler area of your home, away from heat sources, such as fireplaces and vents.
The English Ivy indoors prefers temperatures that range between 50-70F, (10-21C).
This plant enjoys high humidity but it does quite well in the average home humidity.
This overly decorated cache-pot, complements the dainty nature of the English Ivy.
english ivy watering and fertilizing
Properly watering an English Ivy indoors is strictly dependant on the draining abilities of its soil and pot.
I will talk more about this plant’s drainage needs in the next section, but let me say this; proper drainage is more critical than watering frequency.
This is the case for all plants, but an English Ivy indoors is particularly susceptible to root rot.
Water your plant thoroughly, until you see water seeping through the drainage holes at the bottom of the pot. Discard any excess water after a couple of hours from watering.
Allow the top soil to dry out before watering your English Ivy again.
As a rule of thumb, allow the top 1/2″ of soil to dry out before watering again.
Fertilize your plant every two waterings from Spring to Fall with a liquid plant food.
Lovely and healthy English Ivy Spring growth.
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english ivy repotting
Repot your English Ivy only when its roots are growing through the holes at the bottom of its pot. Or, if the pot doesn’t have drainage holes, repot when you notice more roots than soil upon removal of the pot.
Repotting is always done in Spring, unless your plant is affected by pests and diseases.
Click here to know more about when, why and how to repot your plants.
Now that you know how important proper drainage is for your English Ivy indoors, make sure you have a draining pot with well draining soil to repot your plant.
If you are planning on simply placing your English Ivy on a high shelf or a book case and let it trail from there, I highly recommend a terracotta pot with drainage holes.
Terracotta is porous and allows the soil to dry out faster and breathe, rather than trapping moisture like plastic pots do. (While this is great for plants indoors, it can be a disadvantage for outdoor plants).
The new pot needs to be only one size bigger than its current one, max. 2 sizes bigger.
(For example; if your plant is in a 4″ pot, your should repot it in a 5″ pot, max 6″, and no bigger.).
A bigger pot can contain more soil, which can retain more moisture. Too much moisture can water-log and crush the roots, leading the plant to root rot and death.
You need to make sure the soil you use is also well draining.
Mix a generic houseplant soil with Perlite to add drainage.
Add 1 part Perlite to 4 parts soil.
If you are planning to hang your English ivy on the wall, like I do, you cannot plant it into a draining pot!
Imagine all the water leaking down your walls!!!😱
The strategy is to plant your English Ivy inside a pot without drainage holes, making sure you are still providing proper drainage to it!
I wrote a Blog with 4 different ways to do this.
For the practicality of having a plant with long stems on a wall that needs to be pulled out for maintenance purposes, I planted my Ivy in a plastic pot with drainage holes.
I created a bottom layer of draining rocks at the bottom of the hanging pot, and added a thin layer of horticultural charcoal to prevent rot on top of it.
Then I placed my Ivy pot on top of it.
When you repot your English Ivy, it’s a good practice to rinse off its roots and leaves, (both sides), to remove any potential pests and diseases.
In my case, I am repotting the English Ivy in a pot without drainage holes. So, first I create a layer of draining rocks.
Then I add the Ivy in a plastic pot with draining holes. The white particles you see in the mix are Perlite chips. I add 1 part Perlite to 4 parts soil for every plant I have. Perlite adds drainage to the soil.
english ivy pruning and propagating
Pruning an English Ivy indoors is a good practice that leads to great reults.
Pruning houseplants is a spring activity, unless, there are pests on the leaves.
When you prune your plants, you divert the energy they are using to grow even decaying leaves, or leggy stems, into new and healthy growth!
So, chop away those extra long stems!
You will notice new growth at the base of the plant in just a few weeks, making your plant look bushier and lush!
You can even prune the roots of your English Ivy if you want to maintain the plant’s size and prevent growth. It is a good way to keep your plant in the same hanging pot.
In both stem and root pruning, do not remove more than 1/3 of the total mass of either stems or roots!
If you want to propagate your English Ivy, the best and easiest way to do it, is by stem cutting.
When you prune your English Ivy, be sure to cut between the nodes. The nodes are those protrusions along the stems from which both leaves and roots are formed.
Simply place your cuttings in water to root for a few weeks.
Once the roots are 2-3″ long, you can plant your cuttings in soil.
Keep in mind that your new plant will need more water in the beginning, as its roots are used to be in water. Slowly wean your new English Ivy off frequent watering.
This is how long my English Ivy grew in just a few months.
And that’s how much I chopped off. I only used a few segments of the healthiest, long stem to root in water.
styling english ivy indoors
There are several ways to style your English Ivy indoors.
I’ve seen many beautiful options on Pinterest, and I invite you to do the same.
You can keep your plant small and simply enhance its look by using a dainty pot.
Or, you can keep it on a horizontal surface, like a mantle, and let its long stems creep through the whole length of it.
You can create whimsical topiary arrangements by adding different shapes of trellis in their pots, or wrap them around a circular trellis.
Some let them hang from a book case, others from the ceiling.
Then, there are people like me, who choose to hang them on the wall using a hand-made macrame piece.
I find this to be a flexible solution that allows for different styling options.
I can let my English Ivy trail down.
I can kind of braid it and knot it up on itself.
Or, I can train it to climb the walls!
I’ve seen so many beautiful pictures of climbing indoor plants on social media that I wanted to try it too!
I had this idea to wrap the stems around the window frame in the Dining Room! So nice and romantic, right??
I bought the transparent adhesive clips to get the stems going in the right directions, and I was all set and excited!
As the stems grew, it looked beautiful and the whole set-up provided me with opportunities for Insta worthy pictures.
However, the reality sunk in fast!
This type of styling is not practical at all!
I mean, you can still water your plant, but the moment you need to move the pot for any reason, like repotting, pest control, or any other maintenance purpose, you need to unhook all the stems.
And it doesn’t stop there…
While you can train other indoor plants to climb on your walls with no “side effects”, you can’t do that with the English Ivy!
I completely forgot that Ivies grow matted pads in their aerial roots. These little pads, are like feet that cling onto your walls! They don’t care if it is an outdoor wall or an indoor wall…
Oh, no! They don’t!
I got my English Ivy stems well anchored into my drywall!!!!
So, I was either going to strip a coating of paint off the wall, or cut the aerial roots to just repot my English Ivy. Convenient, uh?
Lesson learned!
As I was too focused on the aesthetics of my beautiful wall installation, I did loose track of practicality, and plants behaviour….
I feel my husband’s engineering voice nagging at me; “As long as it’s pretty…who cares if it doesn’t work, right?” 😒
Because I learned my lesson the hard way, I want to stretch the fact that you need to keep an eye on on your English Ivy if you intend to keep it on the wall.
Make sure it doesn’t get too attached to that wall….
If you pay close attention, you can notice the clips holding the stems up.
These are the 3M Command Clear Decorating Clips I’ve used to fasten the English Ivy long stems in place. I always keep them in stock because they are quite useful to hang all sort of things, like garlands and frames. They are quite strong and descrete! They are available on Amazon or any big box store.
Matted pads of the English Ivy aerial rootlets that clung into my wall. They are not easy to remove!
We finally got to the end of this English Ivy indoors care journey.
I hope I persuaded you to get one for your home.
I promise you will enjoy it!
Disclosure: This Blog contains affiliate links, which means I will make a commission at no cost to you, if you make a purchase after clicking my link.
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