How To Take Care of an Ivy Plant - Tips & Tricks

With their lush green leaves and trailing vines, ivy plants bring freshness and elegance to any room in your home. Initially, you might think of ivy as only growing on a trellis in your garden, on a brick building, or even as ground cover. However, ivy can also be grown in hanging baskets from the ceiling or in pots on shelves, bookcases, cabinets, and other places inside the home. Here is how you correctly take care of ivy plants.

Table of Contents

How Do I Keep My Ivy Plant Healthy?

Pests such as spider mites, aphids, and mealybugs are common with ivy plants. Signs of pests might include fine white webs, white spots, and sickly-looking leaves. If you think you might have a pest problem on your indoor ivy plant, you can gently wash your plant’s leaves with insecticidal soap to remove them.

A great way to keep pests at bay is to ensure your plant gets the right amount of sunlight and water. Low light levels and dry air can stress the plant and create environmental conditions that make it susceptible to pests.

What Temperature Works Best for Ivy Plants?

Ivy’s do best with temperatures around 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the plant can still function fine outside this temperature range, but the 50-70 range is ideal.

How Much Sun Does an Ivy Plant Need?

Indoor ivy plants need a lot of light, but try and avoid full sun and direct light. Still, getting enough light is one of the most critical aspects of ivy care. Place your plant somewhere where it gets lots of medium-light to bright light, such as near a northern or eastern window.

Ivy plants can survive in low light conditions, but if they do not get enough sunlight, they will shoot out long vines and become leggy. The plants will also become more prone to pests in low light conditions.

If you have a variegated ivy plant, it may lose its structure and color without enough sunlight. If the color of your variegated ivy starts to fade, try moving the plant to a location in the house with more bright light. However, variegated ivies prefer more indirect light than their green counterparts, so place them further from a window.

How Often Should I Water my Ivy Plant?

Ivy plants do best with moist soil, so be careful not to overwater your plant. Always check your plant’s potting soil before watering and avoid having the plant sit in soggy soil. Soggy soil could lead to root rot or mold.

You should water less frequently during the fall and winter and more often during the warmer months. Also, you can use a pebble tray with ivy plants to generate enough humidity for the plant. When the water evaporates from pebbles, it generates additional humidity around the plant, which ivy plants enjoy.

How Do you Fix Overwatered Ivy?

Luckily, ivy plants are pretty resilient, and overwatering is fixable. First, make sure that your pot has suitable drainage holes and always use potting mix. The drainage holes help the water run through the soil and dry out instead of creating pools of water.

Next, place the ivy near a bright northern or eastern window if it is not already. The heat and light from sunlight will help dry out the soil and rebalance the plant. However, be careful not to leave the plants in direct sunlight because ivy plants don’t do well with those conditions over a long period.

If your ivy is in a room with high humidity, such as a bathroom, temporarily move the plant to another less humid room. Removing any extra moisture and help the soil dry out faster.

Finally, avoid watering your plant again until the top of the soil has had time to dry out, and the plant appears less sickly. After drying out the plant a bit, it should be fixed and ready for you to resume watering again.

How Do you Propagate Ivy?

Ivy plants are suitable for propagation, meaning that you can grow new plants from stem cuttings. When ready to prune your plant, cut a vine anywhere you’d like but directly above a leaf. Place the cuttings in a small glass of water for a few days until you see roots begin to sprout.

Then plant the cutting in a small pot with potting mix, and you’ll have a new ivy plant in no time! Place the new plant around your home or gift it to a loved one. You’ll always have an abundance of new vines in your home with this strategy.

What Soil Works Best for Ivy Plants?

The best soil for ivy plants is an all-purpose potting mix.

What are the Different Types of Ivy Plants?

Algerian ivy (Hedera canariensis).
Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata)
English ivy (Hedera helix).
Gloire de Marengo
Goldchild ivy
Irish ivy (Hedera hibernica).
Ivalace
Japanese ivy (Hedera rhombea).
Needlepoint
Nepal ivy (Hedera nepalensis).
Persian ivy (Hedera colchica).
Russian ivy (Hedera pastuchovii).
Sweedish Ivy (Plectranthus verticillatus)

Conclusion – How to Take Care of an Ivy Plant

In summary, ivy plant care is relatively straightforward. Ivy plants do best with moist but not soggy water. They also enjoy medium bright light in the 50-70 degree temperature range. Finally, propagating an ivy plant is very easy, so you can keep adding more ivy around your home just from one plant!