A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 ivy

about a montha ago i go t soem ivy leaves. i decided to experiment with em . i potted on elaf and put it ouside on a windowsil - suffice it to say that i fried it in the sun! then i potted another one and put in indoors away from the sun. it looked ok for a while but has recently started to shrivel . i am trying to water it more. and ther erest i left in water, these ones all look fine but have not grown any roots. i heard that you can grow ivy in water but i wanted to have potted ivy or even ivy outside the house eventually. how do i get the oens in the water to root and to survive being transferred to earth. and is it worth trying to keep the potted one that i have indoors??
sorry this is so long!!

usually if something is put in water and it grows roots, you can transfer it into a good soil and it will live. What kind of ivy do you have? I have English ivy and that stuff is tough! It doesn't die with bleach...or fire...or drought...or snow....ugh. If you would like some of that, I can send you some. I don't know how long it takes to get mail from here to there, but we can try if you'd like.

Hi Hinda! Although I've never heard of it being done with just leaves (I've always used a cut branch), I always put them in water and eventually they grow roots. Some types take longer to root than others. I think that the outdoor ivy that I did took about a month before it started to root, while an indoor one i did took about 2 weeks to start.
As long as it's green and looking OK, you're fine. The shriveled one I wouldn't bother fussing with-it probably shriveled because it had no roots-you could try sticking it in water to see what happens.
As far as I know (which isn't a whole lot), ivy should not be kept in water any longer than necessary. After a while the roots get kinda yucky. I've potted up several cuttings and they all did fine-they may go into "shock" and stop growing for a bit. And sometimes, if the roots didn't develop well, it may last for a little while and then shrivel, but overall, it's pretty easy. Good luck and keep us posted!