juliana63, I say "Go for it". I had a really bad infestation of poison ivy plants on the property I bought. I waged war on it for several years, and now have just about got it under control on the "no man's land" behind me as well. I do understand that the land is indeed owned by "*", but interestingly enough, the conservation authority went in and sprayed the area, and sent him the bill. I figure I'm doing him a favour by spraying myself.

I may have spoken too soon though about having it under control. Just this morning, I saw some growing in my flower garden close to the bush. I guess it is on with the latex gloves again, and out with the squirt bottle on the offensive plants. While I'm at it, I'll take a look around to see what else needs a squirt or two.

I just saw on the Chicago news that poison ivy is getting more robust and more poisonous than ever. Global warming/carbon dioxide is being blamed. Apparantely, it thrives in high carbon dioxide. Since you can't single handedly solve global warming, I say, protect yourself, especially if you can do it without harming the surrounding environment. Only question, do animals eat it? Could you unknowingly create a problem in that regard if you take out a food supply? It's hard to imagine it as food.

If it's repeatedly encroaching on your territory I think you're justified.

I removed poison ivy from my little woodland garden on our city lot. My feeling is that poison ivy has it's place but not in my small space. Here in ontario poison ivy feeds well over 50 species of birds alone. In this case I feel that poison ivy should be left alone in the wild and not widely killed by spraying because it's not doing anyone any harm and is of benefit to wildlife. To make up for my taking it out of my yard, I've replaced it with equally nutritious plantlife that fruit/seed over the course of spring/summer/fall. Poison Ivy is in no danger of extinction, at least here in southern Ontario so I have little guilt about taking it out of my urban garden and replacing the food supply makes me feel better too.

Barb
southern Ontario, CANADA

I should point out that destruction of poison ivy in many states and provinces need not be anonymous and in fact is often mandated by the government body in charge of Noxious Plants and Weeds. Here in Ontario (CANADA) poison ivy is listed as a "Noxious Weed" and here is what the Ontario Government says about it and any other designated noxious weed:

"Poison-ivy is designated as a noxious weed by the Province of Ontario, and it is the duty of every person in possession of infested land to destroy noxious weeds thereon."

Duty... no need for anonymity but at the same time, why? We should have a duty to destroy a natural, native plant species just because it is harmful to our skin? Quite likely poison ivy would/could never be erradicated but why "blank slate" destroy something that is of benefit and possibly even necessity to the wildlife that our provinces and states are also "supposedly" protecting?

I have the same feeling about Milkweed. Milkweed is also on the Ontario Noxious Weed list with the same instruction. The rationalle is that it is poisonous to livestock who might accidentally eat it and it crowds out crops if it gets into farm fields. Ironically, the very animal that the government ALSO protects "the Monarch Butterfly" requires milkweed species to lay it's eggs and feed it's larvae. The simple solution then is to replace existing Noxious milkweed with a variety that has less potential to be harmful to livestock or crop fields but sadly this does not appear to be done to the detriment of the Monarch Butterfly populations in decades past.

Just sharing my frustrations...

Barb

Are you concerned that your neighbors might not want you to spray? It's probably a good idea to check with them just so they know what you are doing, and be very careful about spray drift. We had a neighbor once who thought he would do us a favor and spray the poison ivy on the edge of our yard. In the process, he sprayed and killed a whole row of much loved lilacs, ones that had taken me years to get established.