English Ivy (Hedera helix) is a vine of near-mythic status. When Bacchus wasn't depicted wearing a wreath of grape leaves, he was shown with a garland of ivy and an ivy-twined staff. This evergreen climber is recognized as a symbol of friendship, virtue and prosperity. It is native to Europe, Scandinavia and parts of Asia and has been cultivated in gardens since ancient times. Today it flourishes in temperate regions around the world. Modern gardeners have learned to appreciate it as a climber, a groundcover, a container plant and a candidate for topiary.

Among English Ivy's most notable attributes are its lustrous dark-green foliage and its capacity to thrive in shade and ordinary garden soil. Its ability to climb by aerial rootlets, rather than by twining stems, led to its use as a covering for walls and other vertical surfaces. It was employed as a climber in the American colonies as early as the eighteenth century. Two hundred years later it began to be used as a groundcover. Left to sprawl, English Ivy eventually became a green tide in many mature southern landscapes.

English Ivy thrives in part to heavy shade. When landscapes age and lawns decline, it works well in dry conditions beneath mature trees. In patio gardens shaded by walls and fences, it softens vertical surfaces and provides a backdrop for small trees and shrubs. Modern ivy cultivars (there are currently more than 400) display remarkable variations in leaf form and coloration. Some are variegated in silver or gold. Others are oddly shaped: duck's foot, heart, fan or miniature. The cultivars are more ornamental and less, shall we say, assertive than the original species. And they offer intriguing design possibilities for the discriminating gardener.

Container gardens always need trailing plants, and English Ivy, in its myriad forms, softens a pot better than most. Try to coordinate the ivy's leaf coloration with the flowers in the pot. Use silver-splashed ivies-like 'Glacier' or 'Ivalace'-with white flowers. Or combine 'Gold Heart' or 'Gold Dust' Ivy with yellow blossoms. The miniatures 'Bird's Foot' and 'Needlepoint' are small enough for the edges of trough gardens or for tucking among stones in shady rock gardens. Look for interesting Ivy varieties in the houseplant section of the nursery. Though they are dependable indoor plants, all of these cultivars are reliably hardy out of doors. As a rule, the variegated ivies tolerate more sunlight than the green forms.

Its flexible stems allow English Ivy to be trained in predetermined shapes. A generation ago, thrifty homeowners often wove ivy on inexpensive hog wire or chain link to create living green fences along property lines. Indoors, potted ivies can be trained on wire frames as topiary circles or cones. Purchased as a hanging basket, English Ivy is an easy-to-grow houseplant for bright indirect light. Stem cuttings root easily in soil or in water in one or two months. Pests and diseases are seldom a problem, although spider mites sometimes proliferate in warm and dry indoor locations.

Occasionally English Ivy escapes from gardens and spreads to nearby natural areas. Unchecked, it will quickly carpet woodlands and smother fragile wildflowers. Allowed to climb into the canopy, it prevents sunlight from reaching the leaves of trees, and the weight of its foliage makes old trees more of a liability in a storm. And while a few tendrils may create a lacy pattern on the walls of a home, an uncontrolled wave of ivy can invade wood and weaken mortar. Responsible gardeners never plant English Ivy where there is the potential for it to migrate beyond the managed landscape.