Mechanically removing the plants is the best organic means of control. None of the "weed" killers are accetable, although some people have reported success using vinegar. Unfortunately, with these "weed" controls you still have the dead, brown top growth to remove and no assurance that the roots have been killed.

If you can, the BEST method is to find someone who isn't reactive to the stuff, and let them deal with it!

Failing that, using long pants, long sleeves - I draw the line at a full face helmet, but be careful with flying strands - and plastic gloves will help. Using the inside corner of a plastic bag and dropping the pieces in the bag can also work, if you have only a few sections to deal with.

Put all the pieces in a plastic bag and put it out for the trash - DO NOT BURN IT!!! The smoke can cause reactions in the lungs of whoever breathes it and can result in hospitalization! Compost piles, and piles in the woods aren't good either - the oil stays around, so you can get PI from dead vines - if your pet(s) find the pile in the woods, you can get PI from touching their coats. Wash all the clothes in hot water, as soon as you get them off. Remember that the oils can be tranferred to other places, so try to make it straight from you to the machine. Maybe wash them twice if you are extra reactive.

If you suspect, after all your precautions, that you got some on you, don't despair. If you wash within a couple of hours, using either Technu (available in sporting goods stores [around here], healthfood stores, and maybe other places, used by line-men before exposure, but after exposure works too), or something like Fels Naptha laundry soap, you can get the oils off without too much damage done. I have also heard that washing with either rubbing alcohol or with clorox works, but don't want to dry my skin more than it is enough to try either.

If you did miss a spot, then while you are at the health food store, see if they have, in the homeopathy section, a tube of SSSTingStop. It's great for bug bites, but also, for me, anyway, if put on when you first suspect you touched PI - that sort-of-itchy, sort-of-hurting feeling - frequently it all goes away. Repeat as needed, as it does stop the itch. It smells sort of "herbal" on first application but the smell soon goes away. It can also work as a very mild bug-repellant.

My brother bought me some organic poison ivy killer, and I mentioned it in some other posting but I don't want to go in the basement right now and find it. Search and you should find it, I posted it this year I think, and in this forum I believe.

If pulling it out, duct tape your sleeves to your gloves. I wore latex gloves under garden gloves and lots of layers and long sleeves, but didn't attach the sleeves to the gloves. Got a reaction on my wrists and that spread and was dreadful! Hubby got it from me, he wasn't so keen about that either! After pulling the stuff out it went into a trash bag, double bagged I believe. Then I undressed directly into the washing machine. All those things worked well.

Marcia

This doesn't have to be that complicated.
If you're freaking about it, which I am (I get it from thinking about it), coat yourself with Dawn Dishwashing Liquid before you go out. It is a degreasing soap, similar to Lava or Lever 2000. The Urshiol won't stick.

Use the plastic all over yourself and definately pull out as many roots as you can, so so and steady is the ticket. Know that you can get PI from the dirt the roots have touched, so dirt spraying = bad.

When you're done? Clothes right into the wash, and into the shower you go with more degreasing soap.

If for some reason, you still come up with it? There is ths absolutely fabulous, miracle itch stopper. I won't say "cure," because it's a chemical burn and those just must heal. Zanfel at the drugstores is amazing. It's rough, like an exfoliant and as you rub it in, following the directions of doing it for at least 60 seconds? Be prepared for your eyes rolling back in your head, because there is nothing in the world that feels so good as a legal scratch when you've got it.

I had it all over my body so badly the dermotologist called people in to see. I am steroid resistant, get it from walking close to it, and intuitively know when it's lurking in the grass. I am also no longer afraid of it once I discovered the secret of removing oil with a degreaser. How obvious it is and we don't do it!

Be ware of talking on your cell phone while doing this. Ask me why.....

Christine

I just looked at the bottle, and the name is spelled T-E-C-N-U, with no H in it.

And Christine is correct, that a strong de-greasing detergent can also do the job of removing the urushiol oil from your skin. I react to most detergents, and, for some reason, don't to the Tecnu, so that's what I recommended.

If you are reactive to things other than PI, such as detergents, chemicals, medications, then having a few things to try can help find one that will work for you.

Tecnu is supposedly used by the Forestry services.
I can tell you, though, that their Zanfel knock-off?
It doesn't do 1/2 the job, you need to use it several times, and when you start to fall asleep? Things start to itch again. Don't go for the cheapie stuff if you do end up needing something to quell the itch.

I am glad no one here is suggesting nutty stuff like bleaching their skin with Clorox or Kerosene. None of that is a degreaser, which makes me laugh at the futility of something so awful!

Christine

I am not overly allergic to it, so I pull it out by the roots using gloves and long sleeves of coarse. It may take a couple years, just be relentless.

Another thing I have done if you find it tangled in some flowers, weeds, or just can't get to it right then, use a can of spray paint to mark it, so you don't forget and can find it again later.

I have seen a remarkable decrease in poison ivy since I began pulling out the roots. Best time to start is early spring. Go right thru the summer and into fall if you have to. Relentless is the key.

Good Luck,
Gumby_CT

I just found out this evening that I have it in several areas. I thought poison ivy had 3 leaves and this one has 5. But saw some at a friends house and that's JUST WHAT I HAVE TO! :( Thank goodness I didn't touch it yet!!! My sister has to have shots once she gets it because it gets soooooo bad! :( anyway I have read to take a bread sack and put your arm inside the sack and put it up with that and then pull it up through the sack and throw it away. That way it's inside the sack. I guess a trash bag could also be used but I think just to be on the safe side I would use TWO TRASH BAGS OR TWO BREAD BAGS!!!!

There are other plants that one can get an allergic reaction from, but poison ivy really does have 3 leaves. So I am wondering what you are referring to, a mutant poison ivy, or some other species entirely? Can you post a picture, gardenponder?

We have poison ivy in many parts of our yard, so the problem is we aren't always aware that we have contacted it until the reaction sets in. Happens rarely, but always memorably unpleasant. We have tried to beat it back many times in various ways, so at least we have a decreasing amount, but of course it pops up in new places sometimes.

Marcia

Poison Ivy only has 3 leaves.
What I learned from my steroid-resistant (read: shots) poison ivy, is that all plants have Urshiol like humans have blood. The degree to which they "share" it with us, liberally with PI, not so much with oh, a daisy, depends upon how badly we react.

I have a friend who reacts so badly to anything from the morning glory (even bind weed) and euphorbia families that she really should be hospitalized. I go each year and pull it out for her.

My point is that the 5-leaved thing is most likely Virginia Creeper, given your zone. It looks oily on the underside and turns red like PI. It's a ringer. I'd be surprised if it were sumac, but it might be. However, whatever it is, you might just react to it anyway.

Marcia? Don't forget about the Zanfel! :) It is expensive, but I swear you will not regret it. I wish I owned stock!

When I bought my house, I had what I thought were these beautiful, weeping trees along my fence line. And this lush vine covering the bushes, growing up the chimney and beginning to cover the roof. (This isn't the story I threatened earlier in this thread.) I learned the trees were poison ivy so thick it had grown up and around itself, straight up, to finally weep over. And yes, the beautiful ivy on the house was PI. Eventually and finally after 4 years of aggressive pulling, It's pretty gone. There were stems my husband had to take a chain saw to, and were bigger than his thigh, which on a 6' 5'' 230lb man is not delicate. Anyway.

Christine

PI can grow as a vine, up trees, as a ground cover, as a somewhat upright plant, and can also hang down from trees. Brand new stems are smooth, but as stems get older, they, and the roots, usually have a hairy appearance - one way to tell if a root is PI or honeysuckle. It flowers and fruits, once old enough - the berries are a good winter food for birds, which is why you keep getting all these new little plants in your flower beds! Oh, yeah, the leaves turn a lovely red in the fall, which annually brings major grief to some unsuspecting flower arranger. Very reactive people can get it from handling the soil it grows in, or firewood that had PI growing on it.

And now you all know more than you wanted to know about PI, if not all there IS to know.

My DH hand pulled poison ivy last year. Now this year it is coming back in some places. Our problem is one of our neighbors has very little interest in their yard and on top of that, they have had illness in the family. They have a very large patch of PI all along a 90 ft length of fence bordering our property. Last year when my husband was pulling it out, he went over and offered to pull it out in their yard. When he got home he said he couldn't pull it all up, it was too much, so he just pulled what was closest to the fence line.

So of course it is coming back under the fence again in places. But this must have been a PI farm at one time [g], because everyone in the neighborhood has some and we seem to come up with it in numerous locations around our property, even away from the fence lines.

I hate to think that every year we are going to be pulling this out, but we haven't come up with another alternative.

pm2

PM2, if there is a mature patch of it in the neighborhood, then the birds will eat the berries and spread the seeds, so, yes, you will have to deal with it year after year. As long as you can get rid of the major patches on your property, even if your neighbor's survive, then all (all, she says!) you have to deal with is seedlings, and the tendrils coming in from next door!

LOL dibbit...that is all, huh? [g] My problem is that I have shrub and perennial beds all along 3 sides of my fence line and I have to be really vigilant to keep it from getting in and infiltrating my plantings. More so on the one side than the other two though. I hadn't thought about the seedlings. Maybe someone has a mature patch, I don't know.

I had an idea...I was thinking, what if I planted some groundcover that has a thick mat like root structure all along the fenceline. Something hopefully that wouldn't invade my bed and become a nuisance. Maybe that would keep the PI from coming under the fence? I can't think of a plant like that at the moment though. Ajuga would be like that but would take over. Creeping thyme might work but it would be too shady there. Or should I be making it harder to see the PI when it came under the fence anyway?

You'll just be making it harder to see the PI. The stuff is sneaky to begin with; don't help it.

This sounds mean, but I just learned in our jurisdiction, that someone "growing" poison ivy is in violation of some ordinances concerning public nuisence and public endangerment. Go figure. IOW, my not-so-subtle thought is to maybe complain?

Or your husband can go in there in a space suit and a chain saw and at least sever the thickest vines. It'll still spread, and almost like deadheading, will put out more for awhile.

You're in trouble if you don't stay on top of this. I'm sorry your neighbors just can't focus on this nastiness.

Christine

I agree with Christine, a ground cover will just give the PI vines cover to wind their way in. If you can bear it, something that grows tall, and lanky, with little growth low down, would give you a good chance of seeing the invaders from next door and yanking them out. Best of all would be a couple of feet of mulch or the like, so you can REALLY see the nasty things creeping in. That doesn't look too lovely, so you will have to decide. And if it's along the fence line, with a good mass of plants in front of the "pathway", then it won't be too noticeable.

It won't do anything for the seedlings - you will still have to see them and pull them while small - they do seem to have a penchant for sprouting in the middle of your thickest growing areas.

Christine,
Thanks for the tip about the Dawn dish soap. I had to pull up quite a bit of PI this past weekend and I used Dawn with great results. Normally, I break out from PI easily and have used the CVS knock-off for Zanfel, which works pretty good. This time, I have no break-outs. YAY! :)
By the way, I have tried spraying the stuff with vinegar, salt and vinegar, and even alcohol, to no avail. Everything short of Round-up (I would NEVER!) so pulling it up was a last-ditch effort. I'm covering the area with cardboard and will load leaves, grass clippings, etc on top to create a border bed and keep it weed-free.
Great thread and good info, as always.

Dearheart rosebush.

Poison ivy is worse than bamboo. It will find the earth that's not covered with cardboard and pop up in the middle of your heuchera or something where it can hide until it has a ton of roots in its new places.

I admit to Round-up before I knew better. I don't think we could have gotten rid of what we did without it, frankly. Even then, though, I was so freaky about chemicals, our watershed, my cats, etc., that I put Round-Up into one of those shoe-polish type plastic dispensers that has the sponge on the end? I tapped the ivy carefully so I didn't get it on anything. The hint from a landscape architect who cleared much of our property was to put (ready?) a squirt of dishwashing liquid into it, because it etches the oil and gets down to the plant to kill it more quickly. Go figure.

Not necessarily a recommendation; just putting it out there. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security with cardboard. The lasagna bed you're creating will just feed it.

I'm glad the Dawn worked. I truly swear by that as a step to avoid PI. The Zanfel knock-offs haven't worked as well for me, but every body is different, isn't it?

I forgot to put Dawn on when I mowed yesterday. Somehow the poison ivy rides grass clippings down my neck, past my sports bra, into my undies and under my bottom, where I ride around on it for 4 hours. Again, I have poison ivy all over my bummy. I get these d@mned chemical burns from it, so I'm pretty miserable and mad at myself. Too bad it's not a more interesting story, either!!

Ok, that was more info than anyone needed. Sorry!

Don't run out of Dawn.

Christine