Why ivy growing on your walls may actually be beneficial

I AM always surprised by how often gardening, a pursuit ostensibly all about communing with nature, can be so driven by fear. One of the most common questions I get from concerned gardeners is how to remove the supposed scourge of climbing plants, like ivy, from walls. The thinking behind this is that climbers shatter brickwork and can cause profound structural damage to buildings. But when you actually look at the science, very few of these fears are based on any evidence. And frequently, the exact opposite is true.

In a 2020 study from the Royal Horticultural Society and…