Oh ivy, you and I both knew that this time would come. You’ve been growing well in the corner of the garden and making it your own but it’s not, it’s mine and it is time to feel the curved blade of my secateurs upon your flesh.
But you haven’t made it easy for me. Your tendrils and vines and runners are snarled and curled and intertwined. You’re more twisted than an Agatha Christie plot and you cling to the fence like a child clings to its mother on the first day of school.
Oh ivy, what secrets does your swollen bosom hold? What have you hidden behind those evergreen waxy leaves? I snip away and there is a frame from way back when you needed some help to get you going, nailed to the fence. A nest, long since disused, rests amongst your boughs, filled with leaves and mud and with a solitary bluish egg, cracked and barren. How many creatures had sought your protection? How many new lives have you helped create?
I understand you now. I know which cuts to make to peel back the years of growth. A new shape is emerging, smaller, neater and more tamed. I need the path that winds beneath you, obscured but now revealed. I need the light that you have stolen from my transoms and where there was shade the light is now flooding in.
Oh ivy, I’m sorry. I hope that I haven’t hurt you as I’ve pared you down. I hope that you can forgive me but as I turn around I realise that you have had the last laugh. Behind me is a huge pile of clippings, much bigger than when you were whole and the bags rip and shred as I try and fold your twigs and leaves and squeeze it all into them. I needed to sweep the path and suck up the leaves and now the back of my car is full of mud.
The time came and it has gone and now my job is done. I have won the battle but I now that you will win the war. Spring is just around the corner and soon the sap will rise and your new leaves will unfold and new growth will twist and turn and tie yourself in knots. You will be here long after I have gone and then the garden will be all yours.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 