"A vigorous, aggressive, fast-growing, woody evergreen perennial that is primarily grown as a climbing vine or trailing ground cover. As a climbing vine, it may over time grow upwards to 50-100' in height. As a ground cover, it typically grows to 6-9" tall but spreads over time to 50-100'. English ivy grows in two forms or stages: (1) juvenile stage is the climbing/spreading stage (most often seen) in which plants produces thick, 3-5 lobed, dark green leaves (to 4” long ) on non-flowering stems with adventitious roots, and (2) adult stage is the shrubby non-climbing stage in which lobeless, elliptic-ovate, dark green leaves appear on rootless stems that do not spread or climb, but do produce round, umbrella-like clusters of greenish-white flowers in early fall followed by blue-black berries." (MOBOT)
"Native to Europe, English ivy was brought to the U.S. by settlers in colonial days. It has been and continues to be widely sold in the U.S. as an ornamental plant. It has escaped gardens and naturalized in a large number of eastern, midwestern and pacific coast states." (MOBOT) 'Thondale' is a derivative of 'Baltic' which has superior cold hardiness (to zone 4). (OSU)