Poison ivy

We've had mild winter so the poison ivy is putting out leaves in a big way right now. It's not allowed in our living spaces in the yard, only in the woods. Yesterday I found two plants in the front yard. I pulled one and today I'm going to pull the other, or at least the part I can reach. It's growing on the fence and it starts under the hedge on the other side.

I spent this morning browsing gardenweb.com to see if there is any new wisdom about clearing poison ivy. All the threads were several years old. There was a lot of what I'll call folk lore on all of the threads. Spraying herbicides was widespread among the advice. Good way to kill everything else in the area.

My first battle with poison ivy was epic. When we moved in nine years ago, there were two huge vines out front, so thick at the base that they had to have been over five years old. I sprayed herbicide on it and killed the pine tree instead. Then I dug up the root, bagged up the vines, got a little on me at the wrists and treated it with Zanfel, which is expensive but works well. It is specifically designed to let you scratch the itch while it removes the urushiol from your skin. I got another rash the next time I wore the shirt I was wearing that day, so it is in the closet (because it was a gift from my mother) resting and waiting for the oil to break down. That takes ten years, I have heard.

After that, I was more cautious about how I dealt with poison ivy. My second battle was with a vine that had grown up into a live oak tree that started in my back yard neighbors' yard. I went over into their yard, with permission of course, cut the vine, and dug up the root. I washed my shovel and cross pruners with soap and that was that. I had not touched the vine itself.

On the edges of the woods, I put down a thick layer of oak leaves every spring, two to three feet wide, to create a barrier between the woods and the lawn. I get mixed results with that approach, but mostly it works until the leaves break down and the mulch barrier thins out.

I use layers of newspaper now when I find poison ivy in the flower beds. The New York Times is printed on good heavy paper and works well. I unfold the paper and use two layers with each pull, never reusing the paper, then wrap what I pull as quickly as possible into a ball inside the paper and put it into a trash bag.

For this poison ivy that is now growing up my side of the fence in the front yard, a dual platform approach is going to be necessary. I can pull what's on the fence and dump leaves on top of what's left and hope it will stop growing in my direction. There's light on the other side of the hedge, I'll tell it, go grow over there. If it doesn't listen to my advice, I'll look into brushing herbicide on the leaves, but that is my absolute last resort. Spraying is not going to happen in my yard.