For the past 2 years or so, I've been trying to cover a massive area with english ivy. I've planted a few thousand shoots all over the place, but they keep getting overtaken by weeds. The area is too big for me to weed myself, and I don't want to spend more money hiring people to do it. What I'm looking for is some sort of weed killing chemical that'll kill everything BUT english ivy. If I can just get rid of most of the weeds, I'd be able to give the ivy a fighting chance and maybe plant more shoots.

Hmmm, interesting. Sounds a bit expensive though. The guy we hired to do it used shoots he obtained from other people who had successful ivy ground covers, as well as from flats at the local garden center. We haven't really thought of that idea though, so I might try it. The thing is, we still have enough ivies left alive to take over the area, but they keep getting overtaken by weeds. If I could get rid of the weeds it wouldn't be so bad, and then perhaps I could plant more ivy. It's a huge terrace thing that goes by my woods; it's about 100 feet long and 10 feet deep, and it's all near vertical rocky terrain. At first I thought it might be my soil that's bad, but there are people less than a quarter of a mile away that have great ivy.