Washington bans sale of a common plant, deems it noxious weed

The sale of a common plant will soon be illegal in Washington.

Washington added Common (English) Ivy and Atlantic/Boston Ivy to its list of noxious weeds, which prohibits the sale and distribution of the plants, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s (WSDA) website.

The weed threatens trees by taking away sunlight, Susan Hutton, executive director of the Whatcom Million Trees Project, told The Bellingham Herald.

“English ivy is kind of an equal opportunity creeper,” Hutton said, according to the media outlet. “It will come to a tree and it will start to climb it, and as it climbs the tree, it starts to compete with the tree’s leaves for sunlight, and in the process, it gradually weakens the tree. Once ivy gets up into the crown of a tree, it’s almost certain to kill the tree in a short period of time.”

Ivy also increases the risk of trees falling in storms, as the vines add extra weight, King County stated on its website.

Common and Atlantic Ivy can outgrow native plants on the forest floor, shrub layer, and canopy.

“When ivy takes over, it reduces animal foraging habitat,” King County wrote on its website. “It makes it difficult for understory plants to grow and kills understory and overstory trees by shading them out.”

The sap of ivy stems can also cause skin irritation for some people. Although the plant is quite a nuisance, it stemmed an idea to solve another annoying issue.

KIRO hosts see ivy as potential graffiti deterrent

A few years ago, former KIRO Newsradio host Dave Ross had the idea to use ivy to prevent graffiti.

“I noticed that along I-5 downtown, the areas with no graffiti have one thing in common: ivy. Ivy has spilled over the top of the retaining wall! Vandals want a clear canvas, and the ivy ruins that. So what we need is to cover everything with ivy,” Ross wrote on MyNorthwest.

The idea stuck with KIRO Newsradio Traffic Reporter Chris Sullivan, who brought it to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) last year.

He found out the City of Tacoma tried installing fake ivy in a handful of spots to combat graffiti.

“We had what we call the panels, which are a one-by-one foot panel of ivy, and then we have individual strands of it as well,” Rae Bailey, a Public Works Division Manager in Tacoma, said. “We tried both of them in various areas throughout the city to mixed reviews.”

Unfortunately, the panels didn’t work well, but the individual strands of the fake plant did.

“We’ve had a couple of the strand areas get tagged in the last year or two, but for the most part, everything that we put up by the strands is doing its job,” Bailey said.

Tacoma was planning to continue the fake ivy project, but then the pandemic hit, and it was no longer a top priority. The city was looking to start the project again, but the vendor went out of business, and unfortunately, the material was too expensive to install in large sections.

As for the real plant, the ban will go into effect on Aug. 9.

Contributing: Chris Sullivan, KIRO Newsradio

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