There are professional poison ivy removers out there. I'm in MA and use a very nice man named Pesky Pete, but I'm sure there's one near you. If you want to do this yourself ( I wouldn't, I'm extremely susceptible to poison ivy) cut the vine off at the base and watch the whole plant go brown. You can remove it in the fall. It will still be something you shouldn't touch,but some of the oils will have dried out a bit
The thing is poison ivy has an impact on the immune system whether you see a reaction or not. Each time you're exposed it increases the reaction and when you're older and have been exposed enough times it could become serious. So it's best to not touch it even if you don't currently get a reaction from it.
Thatās good knowledge to have and explains why every time I get it itās worse than before. Last time I got it it took 5 weeks to clear up. Was awful.
A woman I worked with back in the day was exposed to it when we were in the field and she had it so bad she ended up in the hospital. Somehow it managed to get in her blood and she was laid up for weeks on steroids. Needless to say she had to find another job after that unfortunately.
She likely had an allergy that made the reaction to it more severe. When you have an allergy to certain compounds like latex it can make the reaction a lot worse.
When I was a teenager, I thought I was doing a good thing by cleaning up a bunch of vines around the house. I set it on fire to burn all of the debris up. The smoke got in my lungs and I was covered in poison ivy they had to pump me full of a bunch of stuff to get rid of it. I hate to even mess with it now.
Yeah my eyes have swollen shut from it before..it sucks so bad. I canāt even do my husbandās laundry in the summer (he works in landscaping) because it might have oils on it
Thatās what I thought, but my back, torso and legs started breaking out days later despite no exposure. Required topical and oral steroids, and with the scope of blistering, a heavy round of antibiotics.
Been there rhere.
Had it on my leg. It got into a scratch, then was on my hand and spread to my face before I realised I even had it.
Had to get steriods and antibiotics.
I have had instances where I thought there was no exposure, but it turns out it takes such a tiny amount of oil that - perhaps, I touched a doorknob on my way to wash my hands, then touched the same doorknob, then put sunscreen onā¦ or something. My brother gets it from his dogs fairly often, with no direct contact at all. And the dead plants can still cause rashes years after theyāre dried up.
There are certainly cases Iāve seen (not me) that were considered āsystemicā but that was from inhaling the smoke from burning the stuff, and that included lesions inside the lungs and nose and other soft tissues (including the private bits).
Iām not saying that your case was or was not systemic, just pointing out that getting rashes in areas with no contact with the plant doesnāt necessarily mean that it is a systemic reaction.
My older brother was hospitalized due to our neighbors cleaning up a huge bunch of vines threatening to kill the old giant oaks in their back yard and burning them in a big bonfire .( Late '60s ,way before burn bans ,and the "parent" vines were nearly a foot in diameter ! Inhaling the smoke was nasty whether you got it directly or it wafted in through an open window !)
It was ! His eyes were swollen shut ,and his face looked like he'd been boiled or scalded by steam ,and he had to be intubated because his esophagus was inflamed down into his lungs ,which quickly morphed into pneumonia! It all happened really quickly ( a matter of 3-4 hours) and he was touch-and-go for over a week ,so don't hesitate to get medical treatment if it gets bad !( edited for spelling)
That's how I get when I have a poison outbreak. Immune is already beat up from graves and other immune ailments. I can tell when even small cuts won't heal.
Me too. Iām exposed constantly and as a kid I got insane blisters, now I occasionally get a very light rash that goes away within a day or two and is only mildly itchy š¤·āāļø
I didnāt know my reactions to poison ivy would get worse as I got older. I always thought that was an old wives tale. I ended up having to get a steroid shot which totally grossed me out to think about. I almost passed out in the lobby of the health care office.
Same! And the last time I had two rounds of steroids which literally made me bat shit crazy. NGL- The drugs used to alleviate the dermatitis impact scare me as much as the poison ivy itself.
I have gone for two days at a time not sleeping because those steroids made me nuts and wired. I almost would rather wait the three weeks it take me for it to go away.
I'm allergic. I had many bouts with it as a kid. OTCs kinda worked but years ago I developed a simple home remedy. Make a flour paste and apply to the affected area. The paste will block the oxygen which makes it itch and when it dries it absorbs the puss and oil.
I was immune too, until that time I fell into a patch and drunkenly made poison ivy āsnowā angels to prove my superiority and resistance. 5 weeks of misery, an infection, and steroids later, turns out I had used up my āimmunity.ā Iād hire a professional.
Comment was about what to do with big pile of cut down poison ivy not goats climbing and stripping huge vines off of a tree. Or one could take flamethrower and raze whole thing but you got poison ivy fumes so get a bunch of people and grab it all and get all and get messed up putting it into or on something to get rid of it Or have goats eat it
I don't think you should compost it. I know you shouldn't burn it because the smoke has the same effect as the plant.
Maybe someone here can give us both info on getting rid of it. šµāš«
NO!!!! Would be a disaster. It could go wrong in many ways.....I CALL IT THE DEVILS WEED, lol I've seen it sprout after being cut back. This is worst I've seen!! I'm not alergic...exposed alot....BUT, it landed my friend in hospital....( we peed in the woods at camp)......my husband just got over a bad bout after working at our haunted mansion job. He was miserable, and was "fun" as he recovered.
I saw the third picture and had a visceral reaction to it. Iāve never gotten poison ivy rash, so I donāt know if Iām immune or really, really lucky. Cutting it at the base and letting it dry out is the right thing to do. Do not under any circumstances burn it! That will release the oils into the air, and you do not want to breath that in, not to mention skin exposure. Finding a pro to remove it would be best and safest.
I've told people this before, and I'll tell you now: immunity to poison ivy kind of works like lives in a videogame. Each exposure removes one life, and gets you closer to an eventual time when you'll go from being immune to being SUPER SENSITIVE TO IT.
My ag teacher was immune completely to poison ivy. He became the guy everyone paid to remove it, and he made a lot of money because he could rip it out with no problem. Then one day he had an extreme reaction, one that put him in the hospital for a while. Now, if anyone even cuts it near him, he will break out.
So I know you're not out here rubbing ivy all over your face, but just be careful anyway!
When we bought our first home, many years ago..the yard was filled with weeds. I had four small children. I dove in and cleared and never thought about poison ivy. For one thing, I seemed to be immune to it as a child...I just cleared. It took no time at all for my body to be covered with lesions from the PI. I didn't even know what was happening to me.. it was so beyond the bubbly rash. My neighbor took a look and told me. I had scars on my legs for 2 years. It took weeks, I no longer remember how long, but weeks for it to heal finally. It was torture. It was about 40 years ago... I remember how it felt.
Please be very careful
Get some Tecnu! I never had a response to urushoil and thought I was luckyā¦ until I had to deal with poison oak in a yard. The repeated exposure will get you.
The problem with cutting off and removing the top is that the roots grow as vines underground and are subject to pop up anywhere the roots have grown. It needs to be killed systemically, to be effective. I too am very much allergic to poison ivy and get it just by looking at it, or that is how it feels to me! It is a scourge just like cockroaches and needs to be wiped from the face of the earth.
One of the times glyphosate can be useful. You paint the cut with connected glyphosate and it spreads through the roots through capillary action, whatās left of the plant dies in a month or two, tops.
I've had excellent luck with this method on a variety of plants including poison ivy. Use the concentrate straight from the bottle, not a diluted solution ready to spray. Then I just left the vine on the garage to decay naturally. Id just leave this one on the tree and give it a wide birth for a few years.
Honestly, the last time I did a big thick poison ivy vine I bought a pruning shear at a dollar store and simply threw it away when I was done!
An alternative if you want to use a good pruning shears: buy yourself an extra one. Use your old one on the poison ivy, assuming it's still sharp. After clearing the area, put the old one in plastic bag and clean it when you feel like it. Until then, you have a nice, new pruning shears to use--well deserved after that venture into the poison ivy.
Cockroaches are annoying but if I could eliminate a bug from the earth it would be bed bugs. Not allergic, which is a blessing and a curse. If I were allergic, then, I know if they were around
Pesky Pete is great. He cleared parts of our yard in late fall (so no visible leaves) and only had a few new ones deal with when he came back to check.
OP - Iām allergic but Iāve removed as well now that I have a better handle on it. Itās never going away completely (itās everywhere on our street) so have to coexist. I personally would just leave until winter and the leaves go, and then cut the vines at a reachable height and pull the root. I did that on a few. The crucial thing for me is covering myself up well, working on it less than an hour, then cleaning up properly immediately. I rinse/scrub with cold water and Dawn (warm opens pores to oil). Iāve gotten a little reactions since but was told to scrub again and make sure I didnāt have remaining oils and so far Iāve had minimal reactions. When I didnāt know better (and before Pete) I was in bad shape and ended up on steroids plus antibiotics for cellulitis. I try to maintain a poison ivy free barrier. I use a ziplock bag over my hand to grab it to pull a lot of times.
https://preview.redd.it/9ude1okuzg5d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09deacc8f08796256ee42588ae63fa70f3ebe9b0
Whatever you do, do NOT burn it!
Let me repeat-do NOT burn it!
My wifeās uncle did this and had to go to the emergency room! He almost died. The smoke carried the poison oils in VOC form and it did a lot of damage to his lungs!
Do yourself a favor and see if there is some kind of professional in your area thatāll remove it.
We were burning poison ivy in the fall at the river . I walked thru the smoke . I had it bad , steroids , shots oatmeal bath - you name it - I tried it . Thought I learned my lesson . Nope . Cutting vines with long sleeves on and came in the house . Washed off - woke up too e spot on my arm . Went outside looked at the vines- yeah good ole poison ivy . š±
Every day, expose yourself to a small amount, increasing the amount you are exposed to each day. Eventually you will be so sick of it that you will move to a new house.
I know this comment is in jest, but I was always told that poison ivy has like a reverse tolerance buildup. Like after every time you are exposed your body becomes more likely to have a reaction.
Imo there isn't really a reason to pull it off the tree. Pulling it off only increases the chance you'll damage the bark of the tree or get the urushiol oil on you.
This is the way when I did trail work that is how we would address these takeovers. Op could even make the cut now I'm guessing it's a big ass root at the base.
[Zanfel ](https://www.zanfel.com/)is your friend if you get even a little bit of a rash from this garbage. It's expensive but it is money well spent. It washes out the oil from the plant so you are less itchy & it dries it out.
I had a cat that stepped in poison ivy & transfer it to me & it was horrific. I had a huge spot of it in my cleavage that was so itchy I was using a hair brush to itch it. Somone at work suggested Zanfel & at the time it was a $30 tube of stuff & I begrudgingly paid it & thanked every deity in existence that I did.
I'm allergic. I had many bouts with it as a kid. OTCs kinda worked but years ago I developed a simple home remedy. Make a flour paste and apply to the affected area. The paste will block the oxygen which makes it itch and when it dries it absorbs the puss and oil.
I also think some of the ingredients are different but not positive.
Let's see google says:
**Tecnu** is made fromĀ deodorized mineral spirits, water, propylene glycol, octylphenoxy-polythoxethanol, mixed fatty acid soap, and fragrance. I also read its main ingredient is basically Benadryl, Diphenhydramine HCL 2% but I'm not totally positive about that one.
**Zanfel ingredients:**
Polyethylene granules, sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, nonoxynol-9, C12-15 pareth-9, disodium EDTA, quaternium-15, carbomer 2%, triethanolamine; topical soln.
So that's the difference & probably the price. Whatever works for you I suppose & Zanfel worked for me. That's all that matters, it works for you.
i'm horriby reactve to poison ivy, but i'm not scared of it. i'd buy a disposable "bunny suit" and gloves, and get in there with pruners and loppers, and in 15 minutes it'd be stuffed into garbage bags.
then i'd scrub off the tools with dish detergent, out on the lawn, remove the bunny suit and discard it, then immediately take a soapy shower.
now that you have it cut back, you can target it with precision every few weeks with brush killer, as it re-emerges, without killing everything else nearby that shouldn't be killed.
I did this about a month ago and it worked like a charm. I examined it yesterday and only one stem has come back.
It wasn't a tree, though. It was a patch and it had climbed through and around my precious tomato cages. Took me 2.5 hours to get rid of it.
We use this bar laundry soap when coming in contact with PO. Fels Naptha. It cuts oils apparently, IDK if it has other properties but it seems to be super effective at neutralizing the shit after contact.
There isnāt enough of that soap in the world for me to attempt to fuck with this monstrosity though FWIW
Cut the main vines, the rest will die.
Then you can remove it from the tree. And dig out the roots.
Poison Ivy is one of those native vines that I will gladly remove- or rather, my husband does since I'm allergic. Lol.
Thank you for DIG OUT THE ROOTS. It's the only way to completely remove the stuff. Last year I painstakingly removed several small plants, thinking I'd gotten all the roots, but guess what I discovered in the same spot today š
Go to your local Home Depot, etc and get some of the herbicide spray for poison ivy and vines. Spray (saturate) as much of the plant as you can while itās green and actively growing. Then wait a week or two till after the leaves are mostly dead; the herbicide will have worked its way down to the roots by now and you can cut it off at ground level. Othersā suggestions of waiting for a freeze to remove are good and definitely avoid exposure as much as possible.
The oil that makes us break out has essentially no expiration date and will still be viable long after the plant has died, including on any surface it transfers to. With that in mind, take care in how you dispose of this monstrosity and consider your trash collectors, neighbors, whatever.
I know this isnāt a popular opinion on this sub, but Ortho and RoundUp both make a Tough Brush Poison Ivy spray. It takes about 2 weeks to show signs of yellowing. Itās the only way Iāve found to kill the roots. Iām highly sensitive to it and cannot be digging the roots out. Once itās visibly dead, I put a trash bag over my hand and arm, cut it into smaller pieces, and turn it inside out inside the trash bag like itās a giant dog poop.
The Roundup poison ivy spray worked for me in my yard. I was able to leave the roots and none of it came back. Digging up the roots can be a problem since they are infectious as well.
You should be careful not to spray the tree as well, that stuff can be very strong, and while it will probably not kill the tree, it can still be very bad for it. You can paint the ivyās stump with a little brush.
>I know this isnāt a popular opinion on this sub, but Ortho and RoundUp both make a Tough Brush Poison Ivy spray.
Chemicals have their time and place, and this is the time and the place.
This is a thing of nightmares. Waiting to cut the vines until winter is good advice. If I were you, I would spray what I can reach now with glyphosate. People can moan and complain about using glyphosate, but poison ivy is one time I will use it guilt free.
I keep a small spritz bottle of glyphosate. It is for poison ivy. As soon as I see any pop up I go and spritz it.
My yard used to have a bunch constantly coming up, now it is much more uncommon.
Cut out a 2"section of the vine close to the base of the trunk. This will kill the vine in the tree. Soak/pour/spray Round Up on the exposed vine. Repeat with the Round Up every few weeks. I am starting to believe this should be the state plant of Virginia!
Wait until the fall and then cut the vines when there are no longer leaves. Alternatively, spray with a salt & vinegar mixture where you can reach so you can cut the vines at the base.
Be aware that the oils aren't solely contained in the leaves and people can get a reaction from even just touching the bare vines in the winter sometimes.
My mother lives in Pa and this is what I did to deal with the poison ivy covering her barn. Bonus is that you're already pretty covered up because it's cold.
Get to the bottom of it and cut the stems that are going to the tree and make sure they're about 8 inch apart, let die for about week and with gloves and make sure it don't touch you, pull it off tree and put in bag for trash. Grab bottom stems and pull as much out as you can and trash that. Don't let it touch you or shower right away and do not ever burn ivy even if dead you can still get it from dead ivy n roots.
Iāll explain some steps to kill and remove your Poison Ivy which are well documented from a professional standpoint. As a horticulturalist and Master Gardener there is nothing worse than finding either Poison Ivy or Poison Oak on your property depending on where you live. I will absolutely guarantee hiring someone to remove it is exponentially more expensive than you taking a stab at it in the long run. Itās surprising that goats are one of the last things mentioned in most internet searches however it is now a primary source of eradicating unwanted weeds to include Poison Ivy.
Reach out to your Cooperative Extension (State Agriculture Extension) to possibly glean a list of potential sources for goat rental companies. Some will even provide temporary fencing for the areas that need to be affected. In some cases they will set the goats up on run lines within the proximity of the area requiring eradication of all foliage because they will in fact eat everything down to the dirt and up the tree as far as they can reach on their hind legs. What you will be left with is the actual exposed vine with no leaves and the ability to track the barren vine into the ground. There can often times only be one central stock or several coming from the ground and going up a tree or shrubs in the area. Carefully cut every vine leader at the base of the tree any way you possibly can with pruners or a small landscaping saw. Using a pair of needle nosed pliers pull the vines away from the trunk until there is resistance at ground level and you can clearly see where the vine enters the ground.
The next step is to dig the base of each vine in an attempt to expose the auxiliary rootstock (feeder roots) end expose them with as little damage as possible. Now the fun beginsā¦if you have a 2 gallon sprayer great if not please purchase one along with quart of herbicide that is a 41% glyphosate, professional surfactant, 2 gallons of white vinegar and one cup of rock salt. (1) Dissolve the rock salt on the stove in a small amount of water, add it to the sprayer (2) Add the glyphosate and surfactant to the sprayer (3) Add enough vinegar to completely fill the sprayer (4) Mix the solution by turning the sprayer 180 degrees back and forth for at least 15 seconds.
Now youāre ready to spray each area you exposed root material by liberally drenching the root mass. Next spray surface vines that you can visually see along with any actual plant material you want gone.
Keep in mind the ground should be completely cleared of all plant material from the goats and make this part relatively easy.
Now this is the final step and very important. Buy yourself a bag of garden lime and enough mulch to cover the entire area where the vines are/were growing. The lime is going to raise the soil ph hopefully to a level that will be the final blow to your nasty vine since Poison Ivy thrives in acidic soils.
This along with a thick 4 to 6 inch mulch base will completely eradicate the Ivy at ground zero!
Now for the protections Iād recommendā¦based on the average personās reaction to urushiol. We use these precautions in the industry.
1 coveralls
2 I.C Ivey Block
3 disposable gloves
4 respirator
5 Eye protection
Unfortunately youāre going to be left with foliage and vines that are going to die in the trees and shrubs. 90% of my customers in the past wanted the affected trees and shrubs removed. The other 10% just wanted the Ivy dead and didnāt care about the dead Ivy in their trees. This youāll need to decide although the one tree in the first picture doesnāt look very healthy but itās hard to really know until the Ivy is dead!
I sincerely hope this helps!!
Honestly, my very first reaction was "KILL IT WITH FIRE!!" then I realized that's not a good answer or solution & the smoke would probably be full of toxic poison ivy stuff too.
The smoke is toxic. My BIL and i mistakenly burned some wood that had just the stalk attached to it. We both took a heavy dose of smoke and swole up something fierce. This was dead of winter, on a hunting trip, and we had no leaves to warn us.
I came here to say this. My neighbor offered to loan me her goats. I bet you can find someone to loan you a goat or two. Once all the leaves are gone, get some gloves you can throw away and pull up the roots.
The vinegar that is sold in the grocery stores and supermarkets is only 3%. It will do nothing. You can get 30% or even better 40% at home centers or online. That will kill it, but even that will take several applications. Mixing in some soap and salt makes it work better
Chop it at the base homie. Iām very allergic to many type of poison plants and they were all over the trees in my yard. I said fck it and chopped the thickest part then removed it once it in the cold season. The first two patches I wore gloves/long sleeves the last time i didnāt even bother and only got one little patch on my knuckle and it didnāt spread. Just cut the main trunk of it and donāt touch anything else. If it all doesnāt die, thereās another trunk. God speed my friend. No fear.
Poison ivy=steroids EVERY TIME for me. Once was in the hospital for it with gnarly blisters and raised red skin covering my entire torso.. had to burn my bras, shirts.. sheets.. so evil
When I was a kid my grandma gathered a bunch of poison ivy, boiled it and washed my hair with it thinking it will make my hair grow stronger. I think I was itching for a while
Spent my whole life until age 36 in California where we have poison oak, but not poison ivy. I had never had a poison oak issue despite being an avid hiker and camper. At 36, my husband was transferred to Cincinnati. I stupidly didnāt know and recognize poison ivy and became covered in it. Went to the doctor thinking I was afflicted with some terrible disease. It was so bad. So bad. Moved back to California the next year. Now All I have to do is pass by poison oak and I get it. Off the dogs, off my cats, off my shoes. Iām super sensitive to the oils after my Ohio mishap.
I have a client (I do pond work), who has a tree that looks just like this. I warned all my guys about it. One day I showed up and all the ivy was gone. A company cut it all at the base and pulled it off somehow. Looked like a different tree. Within 10 days new vines were already coming out of the ground at the base of the tree. Iām in MD, if by chance you are here, I can ask her who she used and pass it along.
Hereās what I doā¦. Get garbage bags and box of disposable rubber gloves. Wear long sleeves and long pants of clothes you donāt care about. Have your change of clothes ready for later and have a junk towel (ie throwaway), paper towels and a strong grease removing soap nearby ( honestly I use ādawnā or āFels- napthaā laundry bar soap). Something like painters tape may be helpful too. Get out a large garbage can and line it with large contractors garbage bag, set it nearby. Have a cutting implement nearby (ie axe, machete, saw, pruners, or loppers).
I wear the rubber gloves. I then put one arm in a garbage bag the other arm holds the bag on. You could also tape the bag on. With your arm safely in the bag start removing Poison Ivy bit by bit. Remove the lateral branches you can reach with the goal to expose the vines growing on the tree trunk. Put any removed debris directly into the nearby lined garbage can. Tie off, and remove bags once filled keeping in mind where and what youāve touched.
Once youāve exposed the vertical feeder vines and all debris is collected in bags remove the garbage bags from your arm (s) by turning it inside out. With your clean rubber gloves on get your cutting tool and go around cutting any and all vertical vines climbing up the trunk. Continue using similar above procedures and remove the ground portions of the vines, meticulously removing them and disposing of them. I usually leave the upper vines to die back before attempting removal later in the season.
If at any time you fear you have come in contact with the leaves on your skin, stop and wash up using the soap and cold water.
I would get an inexpensive coverall from Loweās. Also my pruners, disposable gloves and squeeze bottle of undiluted professional grade glyphosate and several large trash bags. Clip the stems at the bottom, put a drop of glyphosate on each end. Pull down what I could and bag it. Wash my pruners, remove coverall, disposable gloves and add to trash bags and take to the curb for pickup. Take a shower put on fresh clothes and wait for a couple of weeks. The vines up the tree should die. Get another coverall and disposable gloves and try to pull down more of the dead vine. Be careful about any dead leaves that fall, rake and dispose of them in the trash bag. Wash your tools well after each use before removing your gloves.
Move...that's what you do. šš
/s
We had the same issue at my dads...I mean have the same issue. A huge asshole all intertwined with the roots of the tree making it impossible to remove with out damaging the tree, so we cut it at the base and removed what we could reach leaving the rest of the vines on the upper tree (after the leaves are gone you don't really see the dead vines up there and they'reout of reach), it's getting much easier to contain and handle now that we chop it at the base as soon as we see growth. It's been many years and that mofo keeps sprouting but it's easy to maintain now and barely puts out much.
We clean the tools and wash our clothes (twice, just in case) right after and use disposable gloves.
For those who don't know:
DO NOT COMPOST, the urushiol oils don't go away and you can put them back in your soil and get a allergic reaction at a later date.
DO NOT BURN!
DO NOT BURN...EVER!! The urushiol oils are carried in the smoke and ash and you can get it in your eyes, nose and lungs. Poison ivy innyour lungs is no joke, it will most certainly send you to the hospital and can be severe enough of a reaction to kill you.
That is quite a job to tackle if you don't pay someone to remove it, best of luck, may the odds be ever in your favor. š¬
Get some loppers and cut all vines at ground level. Spray cut vines with round up. Repeat until it's dead. Wear long sleeves and gloves. Wash up right after.
There are actually a ton of people who are non-reactive to it! (Im one of them) and ill bet you offer someone on FB or reddit some $$$ theyll come do it.
I am INSANELY allergic, and my goats won't even touch it, and we have it ALL OVER our property to this extent in multiple places. I've had it 5 times SO FAR since spring, and that's not even touching it.
I live in fear.
Iām actually removing well-established poison ivy right now between my yard and the neighborās yard. So what I have done so farā¦suit up. Long sleeves, pants, gloves, boots, and as much coverage on my body as possible. I started by putting my arms in a trash bag and pulling it without actually ever touching it. Dispose. Once I got to the vine itself, I started using very long pruning shears. Collected those vines with trash bag.
Once I was done for the day, I stripped everything in the garage. Then took a shower with COLD water and scrubbed my whole body with clear, fragrance free dish soap. The cold water is the important part. Iāll work up the courage to clean the clothes, boots, and tools I used someday. Not today though. š minutes count when it comes to exposure to the oils in poison ivy, but you have a few hours to act on dissolving it before you have a widespread rash.
If you have jewelweed nearby boil the stems in water, it will turn a little orange colored. Save that liquid and use it anytime you get poison on you, it will neutralize the oils and dry up any reaction. Crushing a fresh stem and applying the juice on the spot works also.
Iāve had this problem before on one of my trees. Iāll say yours is a little more out of control. Picture 3 is impressive. I cut the vines at the base and over time it died. Just be careful because even when it is dead you can still get the oils on you
My neighbor and I cut out a 6-in inch piece of the main root climbing up our tree. It died in a few weeks.
Now everything on the ground, I'd get a professional.
Lots of good ideas here. In the south, those vines will get so big, the circumference of the vine can be as large as your wrist. Vines also get hairy. I've cut a piece of the vine 1 ft from the ground and about a foot up. This kills the vine as others have said. PLEASE DO NOT BURN THEM this will disperse the oils through the smoke and can do harm.
Iām from SO CAL originally and I could not identify poison ivy as immediately as you all did. Itās the clustering of the leaves that is the telltale sign, right? Iād think itās just a bush.
Picture #1 does it all
Three-leaf pattern with two opposite on bottom, reddish stem, white inconspicuous flowers, vining habit, mildly yellow compared to neighboring foliage!
Cut the vine at the base then treat the bottom (where you cut it) with poison ivy killer. All of the stuff on the tree will dry up as it will have lost its roots. Wear long sleeves and throw shirt in washer when you are done.
I'm extremely sensitive to poison ivy and all the other evil vines. In fact I think I just broke out looking at your picture. ;)
Seriously, hire goats if you can. Sounds crazy, but I did it years ago (also in Western PA). The lil cuties devoured every single weed - including the PI - in a good sized yard. Took an afternoon. Now mind, I hadnāt ever used any chemical treatments, only tried vinegar/salt, so the goats werenāt at risk. Hang out with goats AND get rid of PI? WIN!
https://preview.redd.it/ji6uxohx7k5d1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40298655ae1e6c8d2d8a018bcf35b71d40419a54
This line of products is given to Verizon Employees - CVS sells them, most are in stores. My family has never had a reaction so I canāt personally recommend, but I have given it to a former neighbor who was extremely sensitive while she was removing some, and with other normal PPE, she didnāt get the rash.
So along with all the advice to kill it, may want to grab some of the is stuff š
With poison oak, I cut it off at ground level. Using a cheap art or childās paintbrush, brush full strength herbicide onto the cut end coming out of the ground. Thatās it. The stuff on the tree is now dead and will slowly degrade and fall off the tree. Herbicide kills roots in ground.
Wear gloves, long sleeves, & long pants, wear crew cut scocks. Leave no skin exposed, you might even want a face mask. Then take a small hatchet or two & go Swedish Chef on the base of the tree & let it die on its own. Don't even try to use precision because some gone is better than none gone & you can go for round two later if needed. Once it's ALL dead wear the same outfit for removal. This is a several weeks to months long project so either have patience or hire a landscaper.
Any time you even think you have been exposed, shower with Dawn dish detergent. Because poison ivy oil is what causes the rash, the Dawn works just like it does on birds in an oil spill clean up situation. I donāt know why they donāt advertise this, but I know it works. (You can Google it.)
Suit up (like those white suites that cover everything) and clean all tools with soap and water, or use cheap tools and toss them out. DO NOT BURN IT!
If it were me tho Iād probably just snip all the vines at the bottom, and watch it die, then rot away over the course of a few years. Iām pretty susceptible to ivy, and wouldnāt want to manually pull that shit down.
Goats! I just had a consult with some goatscaping organizations and it was less money than I thought it would be, and they apparently LOVE poison ivy! Maybe you could even build a ramp of sorts to help them reach the top! But if not, just cutting it off at the base should help too.
You can do it! I killed about 18 forearm sized vines in the side yard of my new home. Wait until winter and cut a 6" chunk out of the the vine at the base of the tree, then use Brush B Gone to poison the stump/root. Leave it on the tree to decompose. For the cutting, wear a disposable head-to-toe coverall, disposable baseball hat, clear plastic face shield, disposable gloves, and grocery bags over your shoes. Have a garbage bag ready before you start and when done put everything in the bag while still outside. Wash your hands immediately and then shower. Wipe down the chainsaw or lopper with rubbing alcohol while wearing disposable gloves. Some of the above might be overkill, but better safe than sorry.
Is it something you're are risk of touching? It's going to feed a ton of bird this winter. I'd consider leaving it and being aware of it. Poison Ivy has high fat berries that the bird will go crazy for come winter.
If it's something you're going to touch or be around I'd just wait til winter, cut the bottom and get the root.
The vines may still have the oil, so be careful. Wash with dawn when you done
If you're exposed to poison ivy, take a HOT shower and scrub with Dawn dish soap to get the oil out of your skin ASAP. Animals soaked in oil can handle Dawn and so can we. Works great.
Everything Iāve read says do NOT take a hot shower! Warmth opens up the pores of your skin, letting the oils in deeper. Iāve read to take as cold/cool shower as you can tolerate and scrub scrub scrub.
I just took the worst shower in existence because of the same advice. The poison ivy soaps I use say use cool water so I went teeth chatteringly cold just in case š
There are professional poison ivy removers out there. I'm in MA and use a very nice man named Pesky Pete, but I'm sure there's one near you. If you want to do this yourself ( I wouldn't, I'm extremely susceptible to poison ivy) cut the vine off at the base and watch the whole plant go brown. You can remove it in the fall. It will still be something you shouldn't touch,but some of the oils will have dried out a bit
Thanks! I'm in Western PA. I am mostly immune, but this... Quantity... Frightens me š
I started itching just looking at it, honestly.
I have a bug bite on my leg that I now have a suspicion might be poison now even though I saw the mosquito do it ...
LOLLLL
Thanks!!! I will probably break out tomorrow now after looking at it!!!
lol, good one! šš
The thing is poison ivy has an impact on the immune system whether you see a reaction or not. Each time you're exposed it increases the reaction and when you're older and have been exposed enough times it could become serious. So it's best to not touch it even if you don't currently get a reaction from it.
Thatās good knowledge to have and explains why every time I get it itās worse than before. Last time I got it it took 5 weeks to clear up. Was awful.
A woman I worked with back in the day was exposed to it when we were in the field and she had it so bad she ended up in the hospital. Somehow it managed to get in her blood and she was laid up for weeks on steroids. Needless to say she had to find another job after that unfortunately.
She likely had an allergy that made the reaction to it more severe. When you have an allergy to certain compounds like latex it can make the reaction a lot worse.
When I was a teenager, I thought I was doing a good thing by cleaning up a bunch of vines around the house. I set it on fire to burn all of the debris up. The smoke got in my lungs and I was covered in poison ivy they had to pump me full of a bunch of stuff to get rid of it. I hate to even mess with it now.
Go to the doc early on & get a shot! I have to or itās terrible!
Yeah my eyes have swollen shut from it before..it sucks so bad. I canāt even do my husbandās laundry in the summer (he works in landscaping) because it might have oils on it
I had a reaction to it for the first time last year (in my 40ās) and it went systemic in the span of a week. I can attest to this.
What do you mean by systemic? Isn't poison ivy a topical thing?
Thatās what I thought, but my back, torso and legs started breaking out days later despite no exposure. Required topical and oral steroids, and with the scope of blistering, a heavy round of antibiotics.
Been there rhere. Had it on my leg. It got into a scratch, then was on my hand and spread to my face before I realised I even had it. Had to get steriods and antibiotics.
I have had instances where I thought there was no exposure, but it turns out it takes such a tiny amount of oil that - perhaps, I touched a doorknob on my way to wash my hands, then touched the same doorknob, then put sunscreen onā¦ or something. My brother gets it from his dogs fairly often, with no direct contact at all. And the dead plants can still cause rashes years after theyāre dried up. There are certainly cases Iāve seen (not me) that were considered āsystemicā but that was from inhaling the smoke from burning the stuff, and that included lesions inside the lungs and nose and other soft tissues (including the private bits). Iām not saying that your case was or was not systemic, just pointing out that getting rashes in areas with no contact with the plant doesnāt necessarily mean that it is a systemic reaction.
My older brother was hospitalized due to our neighbors cleaning up a huge bunch of vines threatening to kill the old giant oaks in their back yard and burning them in a big bonfire .( Late '60s ,way before burn bans ,and the "parent" vines were nearly a foot in diameter ! Inhaling the smoke was nasty whether you got it directly or it wafted in through an open window !)
Thatās truly terrifying!!
It was ! His eyes were swollen shut ,and his face looked like he'd been boiled or scalded by steam ,and he had to be intubated because his esophagus was inflamed down into his lungs ,which quickly morphed into pneumonia! It all happened really quickly ( a matter of 3-4 hours) and he was touch-and-go for over a week ,so don't hesitate to get medical treatment if it gets bad !( edited for spelling)
Poison Ivy blisters can get septic, and the infection can spread internally.
I had it for weeks and ultimately got Shingles bc my system was beaten down.
That's how I get when I have a poison outbreak. Immune is already beat up from graves and other immune ailments. I can tell when even small cuts won't heal.
That's so weird cause I used to react when I was a kid but I don't anymore.
Me too. Iām exposed constantly and as a kid I got insane blisters, now I occasionally get a very light rash that goes away within a day or two and is only mildly itchy š¤·āāļø
I didnāt know my reactions to poison ivy would get worse as I got older. I always thought that was an old wives tale. I ended up having to get a steroid shot which totally grossed me out to think about. I almost passed out in the lobby of the health care office.
Same! And the last time I had two rounds of steroids which literally made me bat shit crazy. NGL- The drugs used to alleviate the dermatitis impact scare me as much as the poison ivy itself.
I have gone for two days at a time not sleeping because those steroids made me nuts and wired. I almost would rather wait the three weeks it take me for it to go away.
I'm allergic. I had many bouts with it as a kid. OTCs kinda worked but years ago I developed a simple home remedy. Make a flour paste and apply to the affected area. The paste will block the oxygen which makes it itch and when it dries it absorbs the puss and oil.
Interesting. I was really sensitive to poison ivy as a kid/teen but donāt seem to react as strongly anymore.
I was immune too, until that time I fell into a patch and drunkenly made poison ivy āsnowā angels to prove my superiority and resistance. 5 weeks of misery, an infection, and steroids later, turns out I had used up my āimmunity.ā Iād hire a professional.
omg i bet that was a painful lesson
I think this right here may be the actual Webster definition of āfuck around and find outā. MULTIPLE YIKES ON MULTIPLE BIKES
Dear GOD
THIS is my fear....I've never had a reaction. And omg never want one. Don't press your luck, chuck!!!!
Damn
It should! Even if it were all cut down for you, simply disposing of that volume of poisonous plant material is daunting
Have goats eat it
Yeah, giraffe-gosts. That's 40 ft in the air!
https://preview.redd.it/6wdvvvmaeh5d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1896694d3849db0288d8bf18966ac1c8d660ef5
Comment was about what to do with big pile of cut down poison ivy not goats climbing and stripping huge vines off of a tree. Or one could take flamethrower and raze whole thing but you got poison ivy fumes so get a bunch of people and grab it all and get all and get messed up putting it into or on something to get rid of it Or have goats eat it
If you have milk goats, will it effect their milk?
From what I've read it is safe the oil doesn't transfer to their milk
Would the oils break down faster in compost?
I don't think you should compost it. I know you shouldn't burn it because the smoke has the same effect as the plant. Maybe someone here can give us both info on getting rid of it. šµāš«
NO!!!! Would be a disaster. It could go wrong in many ways.....I CALL IT THE DEVILS WEED, lol I've seen it sprout after being cut back. This is worst I've seen!! I'm not alergic...exposed alot....BUT, it landed my friend in hospital....( we peed in the woods at camp)......my husband just got over a bad bout after working at our haunted mansion job. He was miserable, and was "fun" as he recovered.
Western PA here with an active poison ivy rash on my left leg and right arm right now you should be frightened
I saw the third picture and had a visceral reaction to it. Iāve never gotten poison ivy rash, so I donāt know if Iām immune or really, really lucky. Cutting it at the base and letting it dry out is the right thing to do. Do not under any circumstances burn it! That will release the oils into the air, and you do not want to breath that in, not to mention skin exposure. Finding a pro to remove it would be best and safest.
The third picture made me audibly gasp!
I've told people this before, and I'll tell you now: immunity to poison ivy kind of works like lives in a videogame. Each exposure removes one life, and gets you closer to an eventual time when you'll go from being immune to being SUPER SENSITIVE TO IT. My ag teacher was immune completely to poison ivy. He became the guy everyone paid to remove it, and he made a lot of money because he could rip it out with no problem. Then one day he had an extreme reaction, one that put him in the hospital for a while. Now, if anyone even cuts it near him, he will break out. So I know you're not out here rubbing ivy all over your face, but just be careful anyway!
Do not burn it! Just in case you get that idea, urushiol in your lungs is not fun.
When we bought our first home, many years ago..the yard was filled with weeds. I had four small children. I dove in and cleared and never thought about poison ivy. For one thing, I seemed to be immune to it as a child...I just cleared. It took no time at all for my body to be covered with lesions from the PI. I didn't even know what was happening to me.. it was so beyond the bubbly rash. My neighbor took a look and told me. I had scars on my legs for 2 years. It took weeks, I no longer remember how long, but weeks for it to heal finally. It was torture. It was about 40 years ago... I remember how it felt. Please be very careful
Get some Tecnu! I never had a response to urushoil and thought I was luckyā¦ until I had to deal with poison oak in a yard. The repeated exposure will get you.
My grandpa was immune to poison ivy most of his life, never really learned to avoid it. Now he's 80 and it's an ER trip if he gets into it!
And donāt allow āmostly immuneā to fool you. It is all too often the person who thinks they are immune who ends up in the hospital.
Don't burn any of it. It can blister airways and send neighbors with lung problems to icu
The problem with cutting off and removing the top is that the roots grow as vines underground and are subject to pop up anywhere the roots have grown. It needs to be killed systemically, to be effective. I too am very much allergic to poison ivy and get it just by looking at it, or that is how it feels to me! It is a scourge just like cockroaches and needs to be wiped from the face of the earth.
One of the times glyphosate can be useful. You paint the cut with connected glyphosate and it spreads through the roots through capillary action, whatās left of the plant dies in a month or two, tops.
I've had excellent luck with this method on a variety of plants including poison ivy. Use the concentrate straight from the bottle, not a diluted solution ready to spray. Then I just left the vine on the garage to decay naturally. Id just leave this one on the tree and give it a wide birth for a few years. Honestly, the last time I did a big thick poison ivy vine I bought a pruning shear at a dollar store and simply threw it away when I was done!
An alternative if you want to use a good pruning shears: buy yourself an extra one. Use your old one on the poison ivy, assuming it's still sharp. After clearing the area, put the old one in plastic bag and clean it when you feel like it. Until then, you have a nice, new pruning shears to use--well deserved after that venture into the poison ivy.
Same process, but I use triclopyr, brush killer. Very effective on woody plants, so itās great on poison ivy, but donāt get it on the tree.
Also, this method is more effective if done in the fall,Ā when plants take nutrients from the bones to get ready for hibernation.
For woody stems, I found that triclopyr is much more effective
I just learned that if you can find a refillable bingo dabber, it's an easy accurate way to utilize herbicides
But what if you ignore the top and just deal with the bottom instead? Can the vines survive just growing on a tree or do they need soil?
They need soil (water), in the summer theyāll be dead in a week or two.
Those hairy vines work as air roots
Cockroaches are annoying but if I could eliminate a bug from the earth it would be bed bugs. Not allergic, which is a blessing and a curse. If I were allergic, then, I know if they were around
Pesky Pete is great. He cleared parts of our yard in late fall (so no visible leaves) and only had a few new ones deal with when he came back to check. OP - Iām allergic but Iāve removed as well now that I have a better handle on it. Itās never going away completely (itās everywhere on our street) so have to coexist. I personally would just leave until winter and the leaves go, and then cut the vines at a reachable height and pull the root. I did that on a few. The crucial thing for me is covering myself up well, working on it less than an hour, then cleaning up properly immediately. I rinse/scrub with cold water and Dawn (warm opens pores to oil). Iāve gotten a little reactions since but was told to scrub again and make sure I didnāt have remaining oils and so far Iāve had minimal reactions. When I didnāt know better (and before Pete) I was in bad shape and ended up on steroids plus antibiotics for cellulitis. I try to maintain a poison ivy free barrier. I use a ziplock bag over my hand to grab it to pull a lot of times.
Urushiol is the active component that causes the rash and other issues. Because it is a oil it can remain active in dried plant material for years.
https://preview.redd.it/9ude1okuzg5d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09deacc8f08796256ee42588ae63fa70f3ebe9b0 Whatever you do, do NOT burn it! Let me repeat-do NOT burn it! My wifeās uncle did this and had to go to the emergency room! He almost died. The smoke carried the poison oils in VOC form and it did a lot of damage to his lungs! Do yourself a favor and see if there is some kind of professional in your area thatāll remove it.
Volatile organic compounds!!!!!
Smoke hit my husband's face last week. His face swole up really bad. Had to get some steroids
Came here to say this.
We were burning poison ivy in the fall at the river . I walked thru the smoke . I had it bad , steroids , shots oatmeal bath - you name it - I tried it . Thought I learned my lesson . Nope . Cutting vines with long sleeves on and came in the house . Washed off - woke up too e spot on my arm . Went outside looked at the vines- yeah good ole poison ivy . š±
This must be PAINFUL. Ouch
Every day, expose yourself to a small amount, increasing the amount you are exposed to each day. Eventually you will be so sick of it that you will move to a new house.
That didnāt go where I thought it would! LOL
šš»
Read this in all seriousness as someone sensitive to poison ivy and oak. Thanks for the laugh
I know this comment is in jest, but I was always told that poison ivy has like a reverse tolerance buildup. Like after every time you are exposed your body becomes more likely to have a reaction.
haha well played
Wait for winter. Cut the root. Poison the root. Pull the thing off the tree and don't let it touch your skin. Gloves and long sleeve shirts are good.
Imo there isn't really a reason to pull it off the tree. Pulling it off only increases the chance you'll damage the bark of the tree or get the urushiol oil on you.
Yeah, and definitely do not burn it when itās down.
Instructions unclear: now have a burning tree full of poison ivy.
Will it fall off on its own?
Yes, in pieces eventually. Just requires patience.
Exactly.
This is the way when I did trail work that is how we would address these takeovers. Op could even make the cut now I'm guessing it's a big ass root at the base.
Wowā¦Iām itching just looking at it š®
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[Zanfel ](https://www.zanfel.com/)is your friend if you get even a little bit of a rash from this garbage. It's expensive but it is money well spent. It washes out the oil from the plant so you are less itchy & it dries it out. I had a cat that stepped in poison ivy & transfer it to me & it was horrific. I had a huge spot of it in my cleavage that was so itchy I was using a hair brush to itch it. Somone at work suggested Zanfel & at the time it was a $30 tube of stuff & I begrudgingly paid it & thanked every deity in existence that I did.
Iām a lover of this stuff tecnu. It works incredibly well although really dries out your skin.
I'm allergic. I had many bouts with it as a kid. OTCs kinda worked but years ago I developed a simple home remedy. Make a flour paste and apply to the affected area. The paste will block the oxygen which makes it itch and when it dries it absorbs the puss and oil.
How does this compare to tecnu?
In my experience they are very similar, but Zanfel costs more
I also think some of the ingredients are different but not positive. Let's see google says: **Tecnu** is made fromĀ deodorized mineral spirits, water, propylene glycol, octylphenoxy-polythoxethanol, mixed fatty acid soap, and fragrance. I also read its main ingredient is basically Benadryl, Diphenhydramine HCL 2% but I'm not totally positive about that one. **Zanfel ingredients:** Polyethylene granules, sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, nonoxynol-9, C12-15 pareth-9, disodium EDTA, quaternium-15, carbomer 2%, triethanolamine; topical soln. So that's the difference & probably the price. Whatever works for you I suppose & Zanfel worked for me. That's all that matters, it works for you.
i'm horriby reactve to poison ivy, but i'm not scared of it. i'd buy a disposable "bunny suit" and gloves, and get in there with pruners and loppers, and in 15 minutes it'd be stuffed into garbage bags. then i'd scrub off the tools with dish detergent, out on the lawn, remove the bunny suit and discard it, then immediately take a soapy shower. now that you have it cut back, you can target it with precision every few weeks with brush killer, as it re-emerges, without killing everything else nearby that shouldn't be killed.
I did this about a month ago and it worked like a charm. I examined it yesterday and only one stem has come back. It wasn't a tree, though. It was a patch and it had climbed through and around my precious tomato cages. Took me 2.5 hours to get rid of it.
I thought soap spread the oil on your skin and you got it worse?
We use this bar laundry soap when coming in contact with PO. Fels Naptha. It cuts oils apparently, IDK if it has other properties but it seems to be super effective at neutralizing the shit after contact. There isnāt enough of that soap in the world for me to attempt to fuck with this monstrosity though FWIW
My Dad always used Fels Naptha. He used to get poison ivy a lot
It is an oil. So wash it like you'd wash motor oil off of you. Dawn dish soap, wash cloth and scrub it off.
I used to use gasoline to rinse my hands off after touching it.
Cut the main vines, the rest will die. Then you can remove it from the tree. And dig out the roots. Poison Ivy is one of those native vines that I will gladly remove- or rather, my husband does since I'm allergic. Lol.
Thank you for DIG OUT THE ROOTS. It's the only way to completely remove the stuff. Last year I painstakingly removed several small plants, thinking I'd gotten all the roots, but guess what I discovered in the same spot today š
Iāve been removing PI for my wife for years. Last year was the first time I had a reaction to it, now Iāve had it twice this year. :(
Make sure there's no Virginia Creeper mixed in with it. I have no reaction to Creeper, but my husband, who has no reaction to PI, does. Its fun.
Oh wow, didnāt know creeper could get ya.
Go to your local Home Depot, etc and get some of the herbicide spray for poison ivy and vines. Spray (saturate) as much of the plant as you can while itās green and actively growing. Then wait a week or two till after the leaves are mostly dead; the herbicide will have worked its way down to the roots by now and you can cut it off at ground level. Othersā suggestions of waiting for a freeze to remove are good and definitely avoid exposure as much as possible. The oil that makes us break out has essentially no expiration date and will still be viable long after the plant has died, including on any surface it transfers to. With that in mind, take care in how you dispose of this monstrosity and consider your trash collectors, neighbors, whatever.
I know this isnāt a popular opinion on this sub, but Ortho and RoundUp both make a Tough Brush Poison Ivy spray. It takes about 2 weeks to show signs of yellowing. Itās the only way Iāve found to kill the roots. Iām highly sensitive to it and cannot be digging the roots out. Once itās visibly dead, I put a trash bag over my hand and arm, cut it into smaller pieces, and turn it inside out inside the trash bag like itās a giant dog poop.
This stuff is amazing. I sprayed and even though it rained the next day, the poison ivy was shriveled up and dying.
The Roundup poison ivy spray worked for me in my yard. I was able to leave the roots and none of it came back. Digging up the roots can be a problem since they are infectious as well.
You should be careful not to spray the tree as well, that stuff can be very strong, and while it will probably not kill the tree, it can still be very bad for it. You can paint the ivyās stump with a little brush.
>I know this isnāt a popular opinion on this sub, but Ortho and RoundUp both make a Tough Brush Poison Ivy spray. Chemicals have their time and place, and this is the time and the place.
I've used bioadvance brand works great but pricey
This is a thing of nightmares. Waiting to cut the vines until winter is good advice. If I were you, I would spray what I can reach now with glyphosate. People can moan and complain about using glyphosate, but poison ivy is one time I will use it guilt free.
Preach. I'm honestly worried that I got poison ivy from reading too much of this post. My rash only *just* really went away.
I keep a small spritz bottle of glyphosate. It is for poison ivy. As soon as I see any pop up I go and spritz it. My yard used to have a bunch constantly coming up, now it is much more uncommon.
Cut out a 2"section of the vine close to the base of the trunk. This will kill the vine in the tree. Soak/pour/spray Round Up on the exposed vine. Repeat with the Round Up every few weeks. I am starting to believe this should be the state plant of Virginia!
Wait until the fall and then cut the vines when there are no longer leaves. Alternatively, spray with a salt & vinegar mixture where you can reach so you can cut the vines at the base.
Thanks! We get an ugly winter so my initial plan was to cut / kill root in fall, remove in winter when it's hardcore dead.
Be aware that the oils aren't solely contained in the leaves and people can get a reaction from even just touching the bare vines in the winter sometimes.
The plant may be dormant, but the oils are still active. You can absolutely get a poison ivy rash in the dead of winter. Ask me how I know.
My mother lives in Pa and this is what I did to deal with the poison ivy covering her barn. Bonus is that you're already pretty covered up because it's cold.
best thing i did was watch videos on youtube specifically on how to wash it off you. its like invisible motor oil and you have an hour to get it off.
Get to the bottom of it and cut the stems that are going to the tree and make sure they're about 8 inch apart, let die for about week and with gloves and make sure it don't touch you, pull it off tree and put in bag for trash. Grab bottom stems and pull as much out as you can and trash that. Don't let it touch you or shower right away and do not ever burn ivy even if dead you can still get it from dead ivy n roots.
Glyphosate or triclopyr to kill it. Then suit up in tyvek with doubled up gloves, safety goggles, respirator, and remove it.
Iāll explain some steps to kill and remove your Poison Ivy which are well documented from a professional standpoint. As a horticulturalist and Master Gardener there is nothing worse than finding either Poison Ivy or Poison Oak on your property depending on where you live. I will absolutely guarantee hiring someone to remove it is exponentially more expensive than you taking a stab at it in the long run. Itās surprising that goats are one of the last things mentioned in most internet searches however it is now a primary source of eradicating unwanted weeds to include Poison Ivy. Reach out to your Cooperative Extension (State Agriculture Extension) to possibly glean a list of potential sources for goat rental companies. Some will even provide temporary fencing for the areas that need to be affected. In some cases they will set the goats up on run lines within the proximity of the area requiring eradication of all foliage because they will in fact eat everything down to the dirt and up the tree as far as they can reach on their hind legs. What you will be left with is the actual exposed vine with no leaves and the ability to track the barren vine into the ground. There can often times only be one central stock or several coming from the ground and going up a tree or shrubs in the area. Carefully cut every vine leader at the base of the tree any way you possibly can with pruners or a small landscaping saw. Using a pair of needle nosed pliers pull the vines away from the trunk until there is resistance at ground level and you can clearly see where the vine enters the ground. The next step is to dig the base of each vine in an attempt to expose the auxiliary rootstock (feeder roots) end expose them with as little damage as possible. Now the fun beginsā¦if you have a 2 gallon sprayer great if not please purchase one along with quart of herbicide that is a 41% glyphosate, professional surfactant, 2 gallons of white vinegar and one cup of rock salt. (1) Dissolve the rock salt on the stove in a small amount of water, add it to the sprayer (2) Add the glyphosate and surfactant to the sprayer (3) Add enough vinegar to completely fill the sprayer (4) Mix the solution by turning the sprayer 180 degrees back and forth for at least 15 seconds. Now youāre ready to spray each area you exposed root material by liberally drenching the root mass. Next spray surface vines that you can visually see along with any actual plant material you want gone. Keep in mind the ground should be completely cleared of all plant material from the goats and make this part relatively easy. Now this is the final step and very important. Buy yourself a bag of garden lime and enough mulch to cover the entire area where the vines are/were growing. The lime is going to raise the soil ph hopefully to a level that will be the final blow to your nasty vine since Poison Ivy thrives in acidic soils. This along with a thick 4 to 6 inch mulch base will completely eradicate the Ivy at ground zero! Now for the protections Iād recommendā¦based on the average personās reaction to urushiol. We use these precautions in the industry. 1 coveralls 2 I.C Ivey Block 3 disposable gloves 4 respirator 5 Eye protection Unfortunately youāre going to be left with foliage and vines that are going to die in the trees and shrubs. 90% of my customers in the past wanted the affected trees and shrubs removed. The other 10% just wanted the Ivy dead and didnāt care about the dead Ivy in their trees. This youāll need to decide although the one tree in the first picture doesnāt look very healthy but itās hard to really know until the Ivy is dead! I sincerely hope this helps!!
just chop the vines at the bottom, they will die out and drop off the tree eventually
Honestly, my very first reaction was "KILL IT WITH FIRE!!" then I realized that's not a good answer or solution & the smoke would probably be full of toxic poison ivy stuff too.
The smoke is toxic. My BIL and i mistakenly burned some wood that had just the stalk attached to it. We both took a heavy dose of smoke and swole up something fierce. This was dead of winter, on a hunting trip, and we had no leaves to warn us.
Ugh. I do know you really shouldn't burn it even though my gut reaction wants to "KILL IT WITH FIRE!"
Rent a goat!
I came here to say this. My neighbor offered to loan me her goats. I bet you can find someone to loan you a goat or two. Once all the leaves are gone, get some gloves you can throw away and pull up the roots.
Someone posted on here that if you spray it with a vinegar mixture, it will die. I'm not certain the ratio.
The vinegar that is sold in the grocery stores and supermarkets is only 3%. It will do nothing. You can get 30% or even better 40% at home centers or online. That will kill it, but even that will take several applications. Mixing in some soap and salt makes it work better
Chop it at the base homie. Iām very allergic to many type of poison plants and they were all over the trees in my yard. I said fck it and chopped the thickest part then removed it once it in the cold season. The first two patches I wore gloves/long sleeves the last time i didnāt even bother and only got one little patch on my knuckle and it didnāt spread. Just cut the main trunk of it and donāt touch anything else. If it all doesnāt die, thereās another trunk. God speed my friend. No fear.
Move.
Poison ivy=steroids EVERY TIME for me. Once was in the hospital for it with gnarly blisters and raised red skin covering my entire torso.. had to burn my bras, shirts.. sheets.. so evil
Stay away
Move š
How to never have a serious poison ivy rash again: https://youtu.be/4oyoDRHpQK0?si=vGfoA9dDdFEOWe9n
Have you tried Brawndo
When I was a kid my grandma gathered a bunch of poison ivy, boiled it and washed my hair with it thinking it will make my hair grow stronger. I think I was itching for a while
Spent my whole life until age 36 in California where we have poison oak, but not poison ivy. I had never had a poison oak issue despite being an avid hiker and camper. At 36, my husband was transferred to Cincinnati. I stupidly didnāt know and recognize poison ivy and became covered in it. Went to the doctor thinking I was afflicted with some terrible disease. It was so bad. So bad. Moved back to California the next year. Now All I have to do is pass by poison oak and I get it. Off the dogs, off my cats, off my shoes. Iām super sensitive to the oils after my Ohio mishap.
Iām surprised nobody has suggested goats. Goats eat poison ivy. Find some to rent, fence them in around the area and give them two days.
I have a client (I do pond work), who has a tree that looks just like this. I warned all my guys about it. One day I showed up and all the ivy was gone. A company cut it all at the base and pulled it off somehow. Looked like a different tree. Within 10 days new vines were already coming out of the ground at the base of the tree. Iām in MD, if by chance you are here, I can ask her who she used and pass it along.
Hereās what I doā¦. Get garbage bags and box of disposable rubber gloves. Wear long sleeves and long pants of clothes you donāt care about. Have your change of clothes ready for later and have a junk towel (ie throwaway), paper towels and a strong grease removing soap nearby ( honestly I use ādawnā or āFels- napthaā laundry bar soap). Something like painters tape may be helpful too. Get out a large garbage can and line it with large contractors garbage bag, set it nearby. Have a cutting implement nearby (ie axe, machete, saw, pruners, or loppers). I wear the rubber gloves. I then put one arm in a garbage bag the other arm holds the bag on. You could also tape the bag on. With your arm safely in the bag start removing Poison Ivy bit by bit. Remove the lateral branches you can reach with the goal to expose the vines growing on the tree trunk. Put any removed debris directly into the nearby lined garbage can. Tie off, and remove bags once filled keeping in mind where and what youāve touched. Once youāve exposed the vertical feeder vines and all debris is collected in bags remove the garbage bags from your arm (s) by turning it inside out. With your clean rubber gloves on get your cutting tool and go around cutting any and all vertical vines climbing up the trunk. Continue using similar above procedures and remove the ground portions of the vines, meticulously removing them and disposing of them. I usually leave the upper vines to die back before attempting removal later in the season. If at any time you fear you have come in contact with the leaves on your skin, stop and wash up using the soap and cold water.
I just see leaves, what's the deal? Looks at advancing pictures. Looks back at first picture. OH. Whatever you do to remove it, don't burn it!
Leave her, admire her, and make offerings to her magnificence on each solstice
I would get an inexpensive coverall from Loweās. Also my pruners, disposable gloves and squeeze bottle of undiluted professional grade glyphosate and several large trash bags. Clip the stems at the bottom, put a drop of glyphosate on each end. Pull down what I could and bag it. Wash my pruners, remove coverall, disposable gloves and add to trash bags and take to the curb for pickup. Take a shower put on fresh clothes and wait for a couple of weeks. The vines up the tree should die. Get another coverall and disposable gloves and try to pull down more of the dead vine. Be careful about any dead leaves that fall, rake and dispose of them in the trash bag. Wash your tools well after each use before removing your gloves.
Move...that's what you do. šš /s We had the same issue at my dads...I mean have the same issue. A huge asshole all intertwined with the roots of the tree making it impossible to remove with out damaging the tree, so we cut it at the base and removed what we could reach leaving the rest of the vines on the upper tree (after the leaves are gone you don't really see the dead vines up there and they'reout of reach), it's getting much easier to contain and handle now that we chop it at the base as soon as we see growth. It's been many years and that mofo keeps sprouting but it's easy to maintain now and barely puts out much. We clean the tools and wash our clothes (twice, just in case) right after and use disposable gloves. For those who don't know: DO NOT COMPOST, the urushiol oils don't go away and you can put them back in your soil and get a allergic reaction at a later date. DO NOT BURN! DO NOT BURN...EVER!! The urushiol oils are carried in the smoke and ash and you can get it in your eyes, nose and lungs. Poison ivy innyour lungs is no joke, it will most certainly send you to the hospital and can be severe enough of a reaction to kill you. That is quite a job to tackle if you don't pay someone to remove it, best of luck, may the odds be ever in your favor. š¬
Get some loppers and cut all vines at ground level. Spray cut vines with round up. Repeat until it's dead. Wear long sleeves and gloves. Wash up right after.
Find somebody well prepared, stupid and/or immune.
There are actually a ton of people who are non-reactive to it! (Im one of them) and ill bet you offer someone on FB or reddit some $$$ theyll come do it.
I am INSANELY allergic, and my goats won't even touch it, and we have it ALL OVER our property to this extent in multiple places. I've had it 5 times SO FAR since spring, and that's not even touching it. I live in fear.
Be careful. Stay away. We call that poison oak where I'm from. It is the thing that I am most allergic to. It messes me up.
Thatās the one and only time I use roundup. I almost died the last time I got poison ivy. Literally. No exaggeration. Be careful.
Cut the stem at the trunk. Itll die and fall away. Sever any and all shoots that appear. Takes time for roots to die.
I realize now that I have no idea how to identify poison ivy, I have never seen it before in my life.
Iām actually removing well-established poison ivy right now between my yard and the neighborās yard. So what I have done so farā¦suit up. Long sleeves, pants, gloves, boots, and as much coverage on my body as possible. I started by putting my arms in a trash bag and pulling it without actually ever touching it. Dispose. Once I got to the vine itself, I started using very long pruning shears. Collected those vines with trash bag. Once I was done for the day, I stripped everything in the garage. Then took a shower with COLD water and scrubbed my whole body with clear, fragrance free dish soap. The cold water is the important part. Iāll work up the courage to clean the clothes, boots, and tools I used someday. Not today though. š minutes count when it comes to exposure to the oils in poison ivy, but you have a few hours to act on dissolving it before you have a widespread rash.
Holy shit!!!
If you have jewelweed nearby boil the stems in water, it will turn a little orange colored. Save that liquid and use it anytime you get poison on you, it will neutralize the oils and dry up any reaction. Crushing a fresh stem and applying the juice on the spot works also.
Iāve had this problem before on one of my trees. Iāll say yours is a little more out of control. Picture 3 is impressive. I cut the vines at the base and over time it died. Just be careful because even when it is dead you can still get the oils on you
My neighbor and I cut out a 6-in inch piece of the main root climbing up our tree. It died in a few weeks. Now everything on the ground, I'd get a professional.
my screams were louder and louder as I changed photos, hoping they would get better. ugh it went from bad to worse in a few pics.
Lots of good ideas here. In the south, those vines will get so big, the circumference of the vine can be as large as your wrist. Vines also get hairy. I've cut a piece of the vine 1 ft from the ground and about a foot up. This kills the vine as others have said. PLEASE DO NOT BURN THEM this will disperse the oils through the smoke and can do harm.
Iām from SO CAL originally and I could not identify poison ivy as immediately as you all did. Itās the clustering of the leaves that is the telltale sign, right? Iād think itās just a bush.
Picture #1 does it all Three-leaf pattern with two opposite on bottom, reddish stem, white inconspicuous flowers, vining habit, mildly yellow compared to neighboring foliage!
Can you borrow a goat
find a goat rental.
leave it it's beautiful!
Cut the vine at the base then treat the bottom (where you cut it) with poison ivy killer. All of the stuff on the tree will dry up as it will have lost its roots. Wear long sleeves and throw shirt in washer when you are done. I'm extremely sensitive to poison ivy and all the other evil vines. In fact I think I just broke out looking at your picture. ;)
Seriously, hire goats if you can. Sounds crazy, but I did it years ago (also in Western PA). The lil cuties devoured every single weed - including the PI - in a good sized yard. Took an afternoon. Now mind, I hadnāt ever used any chemical treatments, only tried vinegar/salt, so the goats werenāt at risk. Hang out with goats AND get rid of PI? WIN!
nothing. that tree is the ivy's now.
Gonna need some of those tree climbing goats
Run
https://preview.redd.it/ji6uxohx7k5d1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40298655ae1e6c8d2d8a018bcf35b71d40419a54 This line of products is given to Verizon Employees - CVS sells them, most are in stores. My family has never had a reaction so I canāt personally recommend, but I have given it to a former neighbor who was extremely sensitive while she was removing some, and with other normal PPE, she didnāt get the rash. So along with all the advice to kill it, may want to grab some of the is stuff š
With poison oak, I cut it off at ground level. Using a cheap art or childās paintbrush, brush full strength herbicide onto the cut end coming out of the ground. Thatās it. The stuff on the tree is now dead and will slowly degrade and fall off the tree. Herbicide kills roots in ground.
Give up. When you sell the house, glue fake white flowers into the vine and tell the realtor that it's a "heirloom flowering tree rose".
Get you some goats
Wear gloves, long sleeves, & long pants, wear crew cut scocks. Leave no skin exposed, you might even want a face mask. Then take a small hatchet or two & go Swedish Chef on the base of the tree & let it die on its own. Don't even try to use precision because some gone is better than none gone & you can go for round two later if needed. Once it's ALL dead wear the same outfit for removal. This is a several weeks to months long project so either have patience or hire a landscaper.
Any time you even think you have been exposed, shower with Dawn dish detergent. Because poison ivy oil is what causes the rash, the Dawn works just like it does on birds in an oil spill clean up situation. I donāt know why they donāt advertise this, but I know it works. (You can Google it.)
Suit up (like those white suites that cover everything) and clean all tools with soap and water, or use cheap tools and toss them out. DO NOT BURN IT! If it were me tho Iād probably just snip all the vines at the bottom, and watch it die, then rot away over the course of a few years. Iām pretty susceptible to ivy, and wouldnāt want to manually pull that shit down.
Rent a few goats.
Goats! I just had a consult with some goatscaping organizations and it was less money than I thought it would be, and they apparently LOVE poison ivy! Maybe you could even build a ramp of sorts to help them reach the top! But if not, just cutting it off at the base should help too.
Sell the house.Ā
Whatever you do donāt burn it. The smoke carries the irritant and you can breathe it in. (Sorry if someone already noted this)
You can do it! I killed about 18 forearm sized vines in the side yard of my new home. Wait until winter and cut a 6" chunk out of the the vine at the base of the tree, then use Brush B Gone to poison the stump/root. Leave it on the tree to decompose. For the cutting, wear a disposable head-to-toe coverall, disposable baseball hat, clear plastic face shield, disposable gloves, and grocery bags over your shoes. Have a garbage bag ready before you start and when done put everything in the bag while still outside. Wash your hands immediately and then shower. Wipe down the chainsaw or lopper with rubbing alcohol while wearing disposable gloves. Some of the above might be overkill, but better safe than sorry.
Is it something you're are risk of touching? It's going to feed a ton of bird this winter. I'd consider leaving it and being aware of it. Poison Ivy has high fat berries that the bird will go crazy for come winter. If it's something you're going to touch or be around I'd just wait til winter, cut the bottom and get the root. The vines may still have the oil, so be careful. Wash with dawn when you done
And then the birds poop and spread the devil seed everywhere
Yep that's how it works. It's a native plant. Luckily it doesn't chase us.
If you're exposed to poison ivy, take a HOT shower and scrub with Dawn dish soap to get the oil out of your skin ASAP. Animals soaked in oil can handle Dawn and so can we. Works great.
Everything Iāve read says do NOT take a hot shower! Warmth opens up the pores of your skin, letting the oils in deeper. Iāve read to take as cold/cool shower as you can tolerate and scrub scrub scrub.
I just took the worst shower in existence because of the same advice. The poison ivy soaps I use say use cool water so I went teeth chatteringly cold just in case š