The Nettles and the Ivy

Of all the plants that are in the woods of England, nettles and ivy, when they are both full grown, most definitely do not bear the crown.

There is almost something personal about how some Green-Gymmers approach the typical height-of-summer task of cutting back ivy and nettles.  It was with some zeal that the team engaged on a summer-tidy mission at The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay – also with the perennial questions, “What has ivy ever done for us?  What are nettles for?”

The second question is easier to answer:

• Nettle flowers make for an excellent food source for butterflies – and butterflies not only look pretty, they are also useful plant pollinators
• The leaves can be made into sustenance for humans – boiled to make a tea/soup rich in iron, magnesium, and calcium
• … or infused and fermented to make nettle beer or nettle wine
  – Mmmm, beer!
• Leaves can also be used to preserve food, eg fish or cheese – bacteria do not care for close contact with nettles any more than humans do!

Green-Gymmer demonstrates the latest in PPE (personal protective equipment)

• The fibres can be spun into yarn, which is strong enough to be used in ropes or sails, and just about fine enough to be woven into a sort of coarse linen (like hemp or flax) – ever so eco-friendly and fashionable.  I rather think my old sheet-sleeping-bag from youth-hostelling days was made of nettle cloth: it was certainly scratchy enough.
  Topical history note
  Some German-army uniforms in the Great War were made from substitute cloth.  (War-time shortages of raw materials for Germany kicked in very soon after the start in 1914.)  It proved highly unpopular with users: 

Ich kenne eine Uniform aus einem derartigen Nesselstoff und weiß, wie man darauf reagiert hat.  Zuerst kam der Ausschlag.  Dann – wenn man in den Regen kam – ist der Stoff geschrumpft.  Zum Schluss hat man ausgeschaut wie ein Kasperl, weil das Material eingegangen ist.
I know that kind of nettle-cloth material was used for one uniform – and what the reaction was:  “First you came out in a rash.  Then, when it rained, the material lost its shape.  You ended up looking like a right charlie because the fabric had shrunk.”  (Historian Manfried Rauchensteiner)

• Back to the leaves – these can be used to make a green dye for your woollens
  For example
  when the German PBI (poor bloody infantry) discovered that traditional Prussian-Army field-grey had a regrettable tendency to fade, thus making the wearer an easier target for the enemy during night operations …
• The roots yield a yellow dye – when boiled with alum
• All parts of the nettle have been used in herbal medicine – there is some clinical evidence that extracts from the roots are useful in treating non-cancerous prostate enlargement
• Another use for the leaves – some First-Nation peoples in North America pass on to their children the tip that rubbing the skin with the leaves before an endurance event lends an athlete more stamina – a perfectly legal performance booster (active ingredients: formic acid, serotonin, acetylcholine, 5-hydroxytryptamine)

Tip

Anyone interested in exploring use of nettle leaves: if the end product is going to be ingested, note that most authorities recommend harvesting young leaves (just the tips) early in the season before the plant flowers

Useful it may be, but the fact that nettles grow so abundantly means there are many circumstances in which they have to be checked.  Hence our getting to spend a morning in the grounds of one of the most beautiful places in South Oxfordshire:

Finding something positive to say about ivy is trickier.  At best it appears to be ornamental and (mostly) harmless.  It does have something of an image problem. 

Most of the bad publicity seems to come from over the Pond.  Ivy is one of those colonial exports to North America, which evokes strong reactions for and against.   People in the USA seem to think of ‘English Ivy’ either as charming and symbolic of vintage-quality (as in ‘Ivy-League University’, because some of the buildings have been around long enough to have ivy growing on them) or as an invasive pest:

“The aggressive grower has no natural checks and can climb over anything in its path.”  (Gretchen Heber)

Correction, Ms Heber: ivy has a natural check – in the form of the Green-Gymmer, armed with hand-axe or billhook.  He is sufficiently determined that in the end he proves the unstoppable force.

What I omitted to do this morning was to ask our Canadian participants how they feel about the plant.  I know that in the US, it has to be called ‘English Ivy’ to distinguish it from Poison Ivy.  Youngsters in the States are taught from an early age to recognize the latter by its leaf structure (“leaves of three, let it be”), because, while harmless to animals, Poison Ivy causes an allergic reaction in about 70% of human.

English Ivy cycles through two life-stages: ‘juvenile’ (groundcover) and ‘arborescent’.  The latter is usually the stage at which ivy becomes seriously problematic.  However, it has a wide capability of eco-damage:

• muscling out smaller species, eg wildflowers, on the woodland floor
• checking much larger rivals by shading/smothering
• … or by hosting plant bacteria such as Xylella fastidiosa (it does that across North America, but the pathogen has only recently arrived in Europe)

So today Green-Gymmers could slash, pull, and drag at will.  Any substantial pieces of ivy could be recycled as infill for the dead-hedge section of the perimeter fence.  One of our number checked the entire length of the dead-hedge construction, and found all the posts were secure.  On the way round, he also slashed nettles, and repaired sections where there had been a deer-leap and a fox-run.

Meanwhile, there was a little discussion of a certain football tournament.  Received Green-Gym opinion appears to be that we expect Germany to lift the trophy, but we hope the Netherlands continue to do well.  Hup Holland hup!