discovered a patch of poison ivy growing in the center of the glads. It was intermingled with them and there was no way to use an herbicide

==>> not if you spray ...

but if you fill the very expensive applicator.. at the link with 41% round up.. or generic ... put on some rubber gloves ... snip the PI and put one drip on every snip.. and do it every 6 weeks until the PI decides to die ... then you can kill it ...

depending on how big a project.... i might put on a long sleeve shirt and long pants ... and throw it in a hot laundry after ...

i use kitchen gloves.. rated for oven cleaner ... and i clean those afterwards also .. while they are on my hands ... its the oil that you dont want to touch.. so i figure something like dawn.. will cut that ....

i simply put the snippings in a plastic bag ... and throw it away when i am done.. NEVER BURN THEM ....

i am presuming that you have a rather minor job here... it obviously.. can get much more complicated.. depending on how bad it is ...

the RU will have no impact on any other plants.. presuming you dont sneeze in mid squeeze and spray it everywhere ...

this is NOT a spray thing.. and its not a DILUTION thing ... read the label.. it should be there ...

return unused to goo to properly labeled container.. until next use ... and dont store the applicator in the kitchen ... rinse thoroughly ... and store it near the RU .. or PI killer

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Gosh. More poison ivy woes.
Pure water is the universal solvent and UV the universal oxidant; the minute amount of urushiol (poison ivy sensitizer) will wash off or breakdown in the sunlight in a couple months or so. Can you stand not touching the glads until then?
(that won't work with the actual dead vines, of course, because in that case the oil is throughout the bulk of the plant material)

As for Ken's approach it will probably work if the poison ivy is still alive. But an easier way is to just saturate a cotton ball with a 20% dilution of roundup/glyphosate (in other words, 1/2 concentrate, 1/2 water) and fasten it with a bit of alum. foil to the stump of the poison ivy. If it's small...less than 1/8" caliper, you can probably use half a cotton ball. Doesn't take much.

The glads would survive being cut to the ground but it really isn't necessary.

BTW, the glads would survive a round of a triclopyr-ONLY selective herbicide, and it would kill the poison ivy. But that's almost certainly best left to someone more experienced.

Thanks for the replies. The poison ivy has already been dug out so my question was really about how to help the remains of the gladiolas survive - i.e. whether to cut the leaves to the ground or dig out the corms now. I don't think trying to tie up the flopped over leaves is an option at this point.

The poison ivy was literally intertwined with the glad. leaves and it would have been impossible to reach into that mess and precisely and delicately apply the herbicide. I've been battling ivy all around the yard in every possible location - in the middle of the yard, growing between rocks in retaining walls, inside hard-to-reach perennial groups. First time ever for this problem. Round-Up poison ivy killer has had zero effect even when used weekly. Ortho brush and ivy killer (tryclopyr only) has helped with repeated applications under ideal conditions but it has damaged every other plant it contacts.

I can't find any sources that say urushiol breaks down in UV light. I have read numerous times that it can remain potent for years so I guess I'll continue to treat it with extreme caution - better safe than sorry/days of misery.

I came across an article saying that ivy specimens centuries old have caused a reaction. Yikes!

http://www.tdi.texas.gov/pubs/videoresource/fspoisonivyoaks.pdf

I'm not even going to bother clicking on that link...but thanks. Here's the question: what other organic chemical routinely lasts "centuries" outside? It would be a rather different world if they did. When trees die, thankfully, they don't last centuries either. Saprobes start breaking them down. It would be reasonable that large poison ivy vines themselves could live for > 100 years, maybe that is what they mean by that. A specimen stored under controlled conditions could last for 100 years. The Mona Lisa wouldn't have lasted 500 years in a compost heap, no matter how great it art. (haha) But outdoors under normal atmospheric conditions, any poison ivy that could have grown in a place, will decompose in that place.

If you must just spray your glads with a warm detergent solution, then give them a rinsing spray. It will wash off the oil just as it would wash it off your hands.

I would just leave the glads alone as long as the foliage is still green. They need to continue photosynthesizing to replenish the corm. In the fall, or whenever you clean up old foliage, I would wrap my hands in a plastic bag before grabbing onto the old glad leaves.

If you want to dig them up, I'd wait until the leaves have died back on their own. Wear gloves if you handle them.

Each fall I dig up about half of my glads. I dig up clumps, shake off the soil, let them sit in a semi shady but dry spot for a day or two, then remove the brown foliage and put the corms in a cardboard box. I store them in my basement. Last year I left done in the garage and they over winters fine as well. I dam in a colder zone thsn you do the glads are less reliable on returning.