Virginia Creeper: how to clean up

I have an old Virginia Creeper along the chainlink fence in our back yard that has become accumulated with dead vines, trash, leaves, and dirt. We've tried pulling the dead vines out but what looks dead isn't always! It's getting so tangled that when we try to find the new growth on the sidewalk side so we can toss it over to the yard side (for pedestrians, moms with strollers, seniors safety, etc.), we can't hardly disentangle them without breaking them off. Does anybody know of a method that works for them? (I thought about just throwing a match to let the dead stuff burn and the new stuff would be green enough to survive but my husband didn't think that would be a good idea!)

Wow! I bet that's pretty in the fall. I wouldn't worry about hurting the live plants. I bet if you cut the whole thing back to the ground the fence would be covered again by mid summer. Prolly not what you want to do...

I'd have to agree with Sue. We have a nice one on the side of our house. Every few years, it is just so out of hand and unruly that I just cut it all back to the main trunk and let it take off again. I have to be careful when I do mine because a lot of birds nest there and hide there.

Hi I am a new member. My creeper apparently seeded itself last year and I have it comming up all over. It is out of control so I am pulling up every vine I see. That will leave at least a dozen that I dont find. It grows up my maple trees but has to compete with the ivy.

My main purpose of the vine is to provide privacy in our back yard, which is mostly important in the summer/fall. What do you think if I cut it back this fall, after it is too cold to enjoy the yard. It sounds like people think that it will come back and fill everything in next spring... ? Obviously not as thick, but it's mostly dead vines now anyway... Has anybody burned them before? I was thinking of using our propane burner (actually, having my DH use it!) and let it go "whoosh" long enough to burn up the dead stuff. Yeah, I'm a lazy gardener!

Sure wish that I had a way of getting rid of all the vines coming from my neighbors yard. They are much too invasive. It is even coming up in my lawn. I have dug some roots near the fence and they have been very large. If anyone knows of a way to rid them please let me know. "Round up" does not work on these.