Poison ivy is alive and too well in North Texas. Here’s how to identify it and get rid of it
I was at an event last week and I started to shake hands with a friend. He smiled and backed off. I could see why. He was welted from working around poison ivy. “I don’t know where I got it, but I definitely got it,” he grumbled. Poor guy looked just miserable.
So, this work today is dedicated to Jason and all who could be just like him. I offer it in the hopes that I can help you avoid this obnoxious weed.
How do you identify poison ivy?
For starters, you don’t rub around in it to see if it causes you to break out in a rash. There’s a better way! You learn that it produces three leaflets per leaf. Remember the old axiom, “Leaves of three, leave it be.” That’s what that means, and it fits even for young seedlings only a few weeks out of the ground.
Boxelder (tree) seedlings look very similar, but their leaves have more pronounced lobing. And many people confuse Virginia creeper (vine) with poison ivy, but its leaves are darker green than those of poison ivy, plus there are five leaflets per leaf.
Some people refer to the star of our show as “poison oak” or “poison sumac,” but botanists will tell you that we don’t have those here in Texas. We have poison ivy. But none of that matters. They’re all sisters out of the same plant genus anyway.
Facts to remember about poison ivy …
Poison ivy is a vine, but it can also hold itself upright when it grows out in the open. In that environment it can grow to be waist high or taller.
It is a perennial plant, which means it is a woody plant that comes back with new leaves on the old stems every year. That’s how the plants can become so large as they ascend tall trees. They may develop trunks as large as a man’s wrist as they climb 40 or 50 feet up into the canopies.
Poison ivy is deciduous. It turns beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow before it loses its leaves in the fall. Then its stems will be bare all winter. But the bare stems are still capable of causing the allergic reactions.
All parts of the plant have the oils that can cause the awful rash — roots, stems, leaves and berries. We are all susceptible at some point in our lives. Some people are always at risk. Others when they’re coming down with a cold or other illness. We must assume that we are allergic.
Early in my professional career I taught vocational horticulture in high school. One day, while my students and I were out working on a field trip, one of my students accepted a dare (unbeknownst to me). He’d been bragging about how he wasn’t bothered by poison ivy. He could even chew on it. Eddie spent a week in the hospital before he made it back to the classroom.
Wear disposable gloves, long pants, closed shoes, socks, long-sleeved shirts, hat and face protection while you’re working with poison ivy. Do not touch your skin with your gloves, and do not touch cutting surfaces with your hands.
Use a pitchfork or rake to pick up cut debris. Do not use your hands. Pile it to burn or dry for a long period of time. Fumes from burning poison ivy can cause allergic reaction.
Oils from the plants can be on the clothes you load into the washer. Take a long, soapy shower immediately after you work around poison ivy.
If you develop a rash, talk to your pharmacist about the best medicines. If you have a serious reaction, talk to your doctor. Ask if an old guy named Eddie has been in lately.
How to eliminate poison ivy
Where you have a clear shot at the vines, spray the poison ivy with a broadleafed weedkiller containing 2, 4-D. Read and follow label directions carefully. You must not spray this herbicide, available in many brands, up into trees and onto shrubs as it will kill them as well.
Where the poison ivy is ascending into trees, take a long-handled ax or saw and cut through the ivy’s trunk near the ground line. Next, come up 18 inches higher and cut completely through its trunk a second time. Use the head of your ax to pop that 18-inch “log” out of the way. The top of the vine will die and remain in the tree. Do not try to pull it out. It will dry and gradually fall out of the tree at which point you can pick it up. In the meantime, use the ax to macerate the stump of the ivy, then pour the broadleafed weedkiller onto the stump at full strength and let it soak into the wood. That will prevent resprouting.
Hopefully you’ve learned enough now to avoid poison ivy as you venture outdoors. Birds plant its seeds in improbable places. They generally germinate in the spring, and we encounter them now through the summer as we’re clearing out weeds and tidying things up. Your best plan will always be to walk the territory before you start working, with the sole goal of finding and removing poison ivy before you do anything else.
