Hedera helix, commonly known as English ivy, is an aggressive, vigorous, fast-growing enduring perennial primarily cultivated as a trailing ground cover or climbing plant. As a climbing plant, it can reach heights of 50 to 100 feet over time.
It usually grows 6 to 9″ in height as a trailing ground cover but expands to 50-100 feet over time. Hedera is a genus of 12 to 15 evergreen plants in the Araliaceae family native to southern, central, and western Europe, northwest Africa, Macaronesia, and central and southern Asia[1].
English ivy typically grows in two stages or forms: (1) The juvenile stage is the spreading/climbing stage when plants produce thick, 3 to 5 lobed deep green leaves (up to 4 inches long) on non-flowering stalks with root hairs, and (2) the adult stage is the non-climbing shrub stage in which elliptical-ovoid, lobed deep green leaves are borne on rootless stalks that do not extend or climb.
On the contrary, they form round – greenish umbrella-like clumps – white flowers in early autumn.
