AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I MIGHT have poison ivy!!!

[ducks4you]

OK. NO pictures...yet. But, I was doing a 15 minute gardening thing before work--you KNOW you do this, too, ;D--and I thought I spotted a 5 foot long area of poison ivy!!!!
Is there ANY OTHER spreading plant that has a cluster of 3 leaves? I've been working around this area and I know that I've touched it. I'm not deadly allergic, just the "rashy, spreads to my hands and face and makes me buy stock in cortezone" allergic.
I can deal with A N Y O T H E R weed, but THIS one, bc I know if it IS I'll have to dress to remove and dig it and bag it all up. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!
ANY comments and ideas are welcome.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i was reading that poison ivy tends to grow near raspberries. i have since found about 5 areas in my yard that have patches of that nasty plant and one just happens to be by some raspberries and a wild rose. so this makes for a challenge of trying to collect the berries while also trying to cut out that rose a little to be able to pull the ivy without getting cut up in the process from all the thorns. i'm still clearing out the yard from all the patches of brush so i'm sure i will find more poison ivy patches as i go along.

i was also reading up on some better ways to get rid of it and came across one that uses boiling water mixed with a lot of salt that is supposed to boil/burn and over salt the plants. you'd still need to go in and remove the dead ivy and roots. you'd have to be careful where you pour the mixture since most plants don't like large amounts of salt, though i don't think any roses growing nearby will mind since they seem to like salty areas here.

oh, i did notice that my raspberry plants have 3 leaves but they don't get that reddish tint when they are young like the ivy does.

 

[journey11]

Run to walmart and get yourself some Technu or Buji Wash. My husband swears by it. He gets severe reactions to poison ivy and has always had to take prednisone packs for it, but not since he started using either of those. Can't remember which brand, but one of them has a pre-wash if you "think" you got into it. You have to use it within a certain timeframe to be effective though. Otherwise, buy the scrub and use it when the rash breaks out. It will dramatically reduce the itchiness and shorten the duration of the rash by removing the oil on the surface of your skin and dry it up.

 

[seedcorn]

Told, if you get washer liquid dairymen use, it will take oil right out of your skin. I'm going to try it. Heavy ate of bleach also works, just slow

 

[Ridgerunner]

I hate that stuff. I used to be immune to it but Im now to the point I get a bit of a rash if I touch it. I really sympathize with those that have a severe reaction.

All I can offer is that I had some in a fence row when I lived outside of New Orleans. I tried some things to kill it that were absolutely no help. I finally got some brush-b-gone and started spraying any living vine and leaves I found. We did not get much of a winter down there, so that stuff grew maybe 10 months of the year. It took about a year and a half of being consistent with that spray to eradicate it. Then a couple of years later a bird dropped a seed in that general area, so I started over. Since that was not established, it was not hard to kill out that time.

 

[so lucky]

Ridge, any idea what the active chemical in Brush-be-gone is? I have found triclopyr is a good poison ivy killer, but it is not as quick as --say--roundup, just kills it deader. There is a product with both glysophate and triclopyr in it, but I would think the glysophate would top-kill the ivy to the point that the triclopyr wouldn't be sucked into the plant properly.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Heres a comparison with active ingredients, if it helps. It's broad leaf only, not grasses.

http://www.gardenguides.com/132346-brush-gone-vs-roundup.html

Ortho Brush-Be-Gon contains a mixture of 24.5 percent of the active ingredient 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxy acid) and 11.7 percent of the active ingredient 2,4-5 (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid). Both 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T chemically resemble plant growth hormones called auxins. Once 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T are absorbed by plants, they inhibit the growth of the roots and shoots of plants with broad leaves; 2,4-D also kills aquatic weeds. The herbicide 2,4-D was introduced in 1942. The patent has long since run out and herbicides using it as the active ingredient are sold under many brand names by many companies around the world.

Its been years since I used it, and it took several applications to wipe out the established root system but it eventually did the job.

 

[seedcorn]

2-4D will kill it dead, dead, dead. Plus it is cheap and over the counter at any farm store.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

the bigger question is how long will this stuff affect the ground? i know roundup says it only affects the ground for 3 days and is supposed to flush away. but i noticed it didn't do much on some knotweed i tried taking out last year with the stuff. (i never noticed the directions mentioning having to keep applying till plant was gone.) this year i noticed it did something to the root clusters where i sprayed the original plants. the leaves of this year's knotweed were growing in deformed in the spots i sprayed.

 

[ducks4you]

WOW! Great suggestions! I hadn't even considered that a bird might have dropped seeds. Funny, we camped at a city park--CW Reenactment (small) many years ago, and they were infested with poison ivy. My horses snacked on it--no reaction. Not Everybody is allergic to it.
I've printed out some pictures to take home and compare. I found a site--might have been posted here before--that has pictures of US weeds.
http://www.weedimages.org/join/joininfo.cfm
I'll update you on this. You guys are great...when I have a gardening crises!