Pictures of English ivy invasive plant growing on a tree in my back yard

Last spring, I had to hire someone to cut down a large tree that was leaning over my house due to English ivy growing up it and weighing it down. Cost me $600, and while I'm thankful to have the tree removed for a reasonable price, I don't want to spend that money again if I can help it.

There's another tree that's larger than the one I had cut (both tulip poplars) that is also suffering from English ivy growing on it. I am more motivated than ever to clear away as much English ivy from my yard as I can going into the new year, and today I started with removing/killing it from this large tree. It's probably 60 feet tall (18 meters).

My back yard is adjacent to some woods own by the county where I live, and it's literally covered in invasive species. English ivy is one, among things such as multi-flora rose, privet, Chinese wisteria, oriental bittersweet, and others. I'm only going to attack the invasive plants in my yard, so I'll probably never be fully rid of the threat of them, but this year I plan on trying to remove as much of them as I can and replace it with natives to the southeast USA.