Question
I have a shaded area in my backyard where I had successfully planted English ivy, put down some stepping stones, and planned to put some hostas.  However, within the last two years wild strawberries have about 60-70% taken over the area.  I do not know how it happened or what to do about it.  I want it gone so I can continue with my small shade garden.  I would so much appreciate your suggestions.  Thank you in advance.

Answer
Hi Patricia'
If the strawberries are a true weed, putting down sugar and watering it in well, will enrich the soil, and weeds don't like poor soil, and will not thrive in rich soil/
I put sugar on my lawn in the spring and fall. When I first did it, I had every kind of weed that grows around here, including wild violets.
The weeds faded away in a couple of mowings, and fewer came up each spring after that. In about the third year, no weeds came up at all, and have not since.
The only down side to this is, I liked the wild violets, and they don't come up anymore either.
The best chemical weed killer I have ever used is WipeOut, by Green Light.
It absorbs through the leaves, stems and ground. It will absorb through the leaves and stems and carry down to the tap root of the weed and kill out the tap root.
It will not harm grass, but it kills ANY broadleaf plant it gets on, and it doesn't take much of it.
Squirrels bury these teeny little pecans in among my climbing roses. Little pecan tree saplings come up in my toses, and the tap root is twice as deep as the part showing above ground is high. Impossible to dig out.
Rich soil does not get rid of tree saplings.It makes them grow better.
I cover the bush with plastic, and paint a solution on a lot of the leaves, with a small paing brush. I don't want one drop to get on my roses. I mix 1 part WipeOut with 2 parts water, and paint it on. I wait a little till it has time to dry, and take the plastic cover off the rosebush. Usually in a few hours to one day, the sapling looks sickly, then it starts to turn black, and I leave it for a couple of weeks, to let the roots rot good, then I can easily pull out the dead sapling.
Your ivy is a broadleaf plant, and it will kill it really fast, so if you use the WipeOut, be sure to protect the ivy until the WipeOut dries, and DON'T water for a few days, or you will activate the wipeout. when you do water, water to at least a depth of 8 inches, to wash any wipeout that may be there down past the roots of the ivy, and out of your soil. It is also a good idea to water with a soaker hose. a sprinkler would wet the WipeOut on the ivy leaves.
You could make a little collar that you could slip around the strawberry plant that would keep it off the ivy.
If any gets on some of the ivy leaves, it may be enough to kill that one plant, but it won't harm any plants it doesn't get on, and the ivy will spread and cover that area before long. I used it to kill out some of my english Ivy that went way out of it's bounds, and the next year, it was right back out there.
I would think when your ivy gets very thick, the strawberries will not have enough sunlight to germinate new seeds that blow onto your lawn.
In fact, when the strawberry plants die, I would pull them out, to minimixe any WipeOut that might wash off onto your soil.

Hope this helps.
Charlotte