Poison Ivy: There's got to be organic solution?

Hi,

I have been organic for many years, but this year I am really challenged. Between the winter moth caterpillars and red lily leaf beetle and now a whole lot line of poison ivy coming under my fence from the neighbor's yard. I really need an organic solution. I have already removed poison ivy from my yard a LOT last year, by pulling and digging it out by hand. But now it is sprouting in places I never used to have it. The problem is a neighbor with a health problem that can't take care of their yard. They must have a huge amount of it on the other side of the fence. I wouldn't be surprised if it is going to seed and the birds are dropping it in my yard too, on top of it oozing through the fence pickets and under it.

What can I do, since I can't go in their yard and dig it up?

Thanks :-)

Jewelweed Vinegar Spray

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) grows in the wild, wet places in the Eastern United States. The juice of the plant is a traditional remedy for all sorts of skin ailments. We use it because it grows prolifically in our gardens. To use it, we simply crush the leaves and stems and rub the juice on itchy spots. To preserve and keep it handy we make this vinegar.

1 cup fresh crushed jewelweed
2 cups apple cider vinegar

Place jewelweed in glass quart jar. Cover with vinegar and seal jar with a plastic lid (vinegar corrodes metal). You can use it in a day or leave the herb in for up to four weeks. Pour vinegar through a cheesecloth-lined strainer. We add insect-repellent and antiseptic essential oils to the vinegar, ten drops each to a one-pint sprayer. The spray is kept nearby to subdue itchy fits and to re-apply insect-repellent oils. As a variation, we make Herbal Insect-Repellent Vinegar to mix with the Jewelweed Vinegar. The vinegars are good for about a year before losing their potency.

Jewelweed is a "companion" plant that grows where the Poison Ivy grows. They grows very close to one another:
Spotted Jewel Weed (Impatiens capensis) http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1431/index.html

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) http://2bnthewild.com/plants/H258.htm "Medical Uses: Juice used to treat many types of skin eruptions and injuries and is especially touted as a cure and even a preventative for Poison Ivy, Toxicodendron radicans rash."

Pale Jewel Weed (Impatiens pallida) http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/73313/index.html

-Recipe courtesy of Susan Belsinger

http://www.herbcompanion.com/recipes/06_07_06-Jewelweed-Vinegar

I've had luck with Burnout (clove oil plus other stuff) on poison ivy. But might your neighbors appreciate you digging their mess up (not that it would be a fun job). Have you asked them?

I'll trade your poison ivy for my quack grass...

Paint "Straight" Vinegar on them! Don't get the Vinegar on any plants you want to keep.

Pour "Straight" Vinegar on the cracks in sidewalks to remove all living weeds & future seeds.

Maybe pour a line of Vinegar on the soil between your property lines? It's cheap enough.

Living Mulches

* Smother crops (or cover crops): Good for the vegetable garden or small farm.
* Alfalfa, barley, buckwheat, canary grass, crested wheatgrass, cowpeas, clovers, hemp, millet, Sudan grass, sweet clover, rape, sorghums, soybeans.
* Ground Cover Plants: For flower beds, slopes, rock gardens.

Groundcover Plants that effectively choke out the weeds are:
Ajuga, creeping dianthus, hens and chicks, ice plants, pussytoes, sedums (gold moss, Dragons blood, etc.), creeping and wooly thymes, vinca minor, and wild strawberry. Note: Gold moss sedum (sedum acres) forms a very dense mat and is exceptional for weed control. It has pretty star shaped gold flowers and is evergreen too!

Groundcovers can also be an ideal solution for erosion control, alternative lawns, and firebreaks.

This is the one I use: Gold Moss, Stringy Stonecrop http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/74192/ if you want some of it just email me... I'll give you some for postage.

~* Robin

This message was edited Jun 12, 2006 9:52 PM

Hello :-) Thanks so much for the responses.

naturewalker...thanks for the recipe for something to apply if you get a rash. I had heard of the jewelweed remedy but not of the vinegar and jewelweed together. I did look at the images of it from your links and I have never seen a plant like that in our area. At first I thought you meant impatiens..like the bedding plant or the New Guinea impatiens. I will keep my eye out for that plant.

Zeppy, that sounds like a good product too. I found a link for it:

http://www.biconet.com/lawn/poisonivydefoliant.html

Zeppy, as for digging up our neighbor's poison ivy. We have tried in the past to offer help in removing tree branches etc. and they seem to have a fear of having someone hurt themselves on their property and didn't want us to do that. No we haven't talked to them yet about the poison ivy. I am afraid that if I do alert them to it, they will attempt to spray some strong poison the length of our lot line, or probably hire a company that would do it. I wanted to get some good information about how to remove it safely before talking to them about it. Would we really want to offer to go into their yard and pull out by hand 120 ft of poison ivy for them? That would really be a stretch for us. Last year, we removed the poison ivy we had in our yard and it was a lot less than that and was a job we were really happy to be finished with. I don't know, I am certainly going to give it some thought, but I think it would be a big job. We have had to do a LOT of ripping out of shrubs and huge and numerous saplings from a long neglected shrub border. And yes, we have quack grass and poison ivy. We battled the quack grass weed for the past 25 years in our vegetable patch and finally it won out and I just gave up attempting to grow vegetables in that area. Then last summer we decided it had to go and read somewhere that you should stop trying to dig it out, which is what we were doing and smother it instead. We used cardboard layers and thick bark mulch over the whole area and we lucked out because all of July and August, it was very hot and dry last year, so I am sure that helped. We have finally got most of that under control. This year we have only gotten back a few little stragglers here and there that we promptly are covering with more cardboard and bark mulch. Thanks Zeppy

Nature walker...Have you tried the straight vinegar on poison ivy? I had heard that it only kills the leaves and doesn't get to the roots and that afterward you still have to dispose of the dead branches etc. or you can still get a rash from them. Also heard you need a stronger vinegar than what is in the supermarket. Do you know anything about that?

As for the living mulches. That is a good idea too. Once we get out the poison ivy from that area and resolve what they can do with their side, I will definitely plant a ground cover along the fence line. The fence is actually at the back of a long border where I grow perennials and shrubs now. It would be on the north side of the border and so I would be attempting to grow tall sun loving plants there. I would have to put in a groundcover that wouldn't interfere with those plants and would have to grow in the shade I guess. That eliminates quite a few of your plant suggestions. I guess I will have to think about whether I would want to add ajuga there. No to the vinca...just ripped it out due to aggressive nature of it. I actually have the gold moss stonecrop already and have decided not to grow it in the ground due to it's invasive nature. I am growing it in a pot which I can leave out all year in our cold winters and it still comes back every spring. Thanks for the offer of sending it to me though. Maybe the ajuga would be a good idea. That is supposed to have a very thick matt of roots, that maybe the poison ivy would have a hard time getting through.

Thanks very much for all the great ideas! :-)

Hello again :-)

When Zeppy suggested the clove based product, I went to a company called Gardens Alive looking for it first. They sell organic solutions for the garden, but surprisingly, they didn't offer a product to use for this application. I found it interesting that they did offer information about how to get rid of poison ivy. They certainly could have come up with their own clove based or vinegar based product, but instead they offer the solution that they think is best. Some companies wouldn't miss the opportunity to sell you something. I think that is very interesting. Here is the information that they posted on their site about removing poison ivy:


Poison Ivy Problems? Pulling is the way to go;
dangerous chemical herbicides are NOT!

Q. Dear Mike: I heard somewhere recently that Roundup kills frogs and toads. Is this true? I have poison ivy (or maybe it's poison oak) on our property. If it's just one little sprig I pull it out, but for a larger area I had been using Roundup, which I will stop using if it really does harm frogs and toads. But then what do I do?
---Gwen in Newtown, PA

What is the easiest and safest way to clear poison ivy plants from my yard? Should I try it myself or find a lawn care company to do it for me?
---Joanna in Sterling, VA

We are building a house on a ten-acre tract. There is a LOT of poison ivy around. My wife is sensitive to the stuff and I'm *extremely* sensitive -- a significant exposure can lead to a hospital trip. We also have two small children that love to explore in the woods. We're teaching them how to identify poison ivy, but we'd like to keep easily accessible areas clear of it. Can anything besides herbicides beat this stuff back?
---Kim at the University of Oklahoma Institute for Meteorological Studies ("All weather is divided into three parts: Yes, No, and Maybe. The greatest of these is Maybe".)

A. Yes, Gwen—you heard right (and probably on this show!): Roundup is deadly to frogs and toads. (Here’s a link to that research: http://www.whyy.org/91FM/ybyg/relyea2005.pdf; and to the website of the researcher himself, Dr. Rick Relyea: http://www.pitt.edu/~relyea/.) If you search a bit, you’ll find lots of other scientific concerns about the safety of Roundup. And the other most common weed killer in America (2,4-D) has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

And herbicides in general are essentially useless in this situation to begin with, because the dead curled up remains of these dermatologicaly dangerous plants will still give you a nasty rash. All parts of the plant—roots, leaves, stalk and stems, dead or alive—contain the oil that triggers the reaction, even in winter! People often assume that herbicide-sprayed poison ivy remains are safe and get nailed when they clean up the ugly—and now doubly-toxic—debris left behind.

Instead, follow my surprisingly effective—and super safe—pulling plan. This isn’t ‘theory’; my property was covered with poison ivy when we bought it, and I developed the specialized technique I’m about to detail while clearing it. Follow these instructions and you’ll get rid of it all—without leaving any dead but still dangerous foliage behind, with no risk to yourself, in a surprisingly short period of time.

First, protect your hands, face, and other exposed areas with “Ivy Block”. This clay-based lotion forms a protective barrier against the plant’s allergenic oil; it’s available at most drug stores, and there’s a list of retailers and places to buy it online at www.ivyblock.com.

Then get yourself a helper, a big rolling trashcan, and get ready to do The Plastic Bag Dance. Wait till the ground is soaking wet (or drench it yourself), and gather up lots of heavy plastic mall shopping bags; not the thinner supermarket variety. Slip a bag over each hand, locate where each vine enters the soil and pull s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y with one of your bagged hands; the vine should come right up for you, root and all. If it resists, have your helper soak the soil around the base of the vine with a garden hose. Don’t YOU (the puller) be touchin’ ANYTHING but the inside of them bags. Then fold the bag that’s been covering your other hand over the pulled ivy, and drop the vine and both bags into the trashcan. NEVER re-use any of your ‘hand bags’; start with fresh ones every time.

If the vine snaps with the root still in the soil, have your helper put a little stake into that spot to mark it, then come back the next day and drench the area with the strongest vinegar you can find to kill the root, or mulch with several inches of something thick and impenetrable (like shredded radio show host) to smother it. Or wait till new growth appears and attack it immediately with a vinegar or soap-based non-toxic herbicide; its easier to kill the root with such an attack when the above ground growth is stressed and small. (Then bag up any above-ground remains, of course.)

When you’re finished, have your helper open all doors for you. Go straight to the washer, put all your clothes in and have your helper run them thru a cold water cycle. Then you get in the shower, have your helper turn it on and wash yourself well with cool water. No soap; no washcloth. Water alone will remove the allergenic oil; soap and cloth can spread it to other, perhaps more sensitive, areas. Yes, exactly the areas you’re thinking about right now!

Don’t do this without a helper! You’ll be certain to get some of that nasty oil on a doorknob, faucet or other surface, where it will keep giving you—and lots of other people—a nasty rash for many months. And don’t even think about trying this with gloves instead of bags. I guarantee your mind will wander at some point and you’ll scratch your nose or rub your eye, and then….well, you know. There’s a lot less chance you’ll do that with a plastic bag—and by using new bags every time, you take the chance of you doing it with any of that nasty active ingredient oil attached pretty much down to zero.

But some people simply refuse to believe that water alone can rinse all of the dangerous oil off their skin, so they use Fell’s Naptha soap or jewelweed or some other home remedy, often with very painful results. One of the world’s leading experts on these rash-inducing plants, Dr. William Epstein, professor emeritus of dermatology at the University of California at San Francisco, assures me that plain old water is all you need. The real issue is timing. You have about 20 minutes to wash the oil off your skin after you touch poison ivy and not suffer any reaction.

Out in the wild, far away from reliable running water, hikers often depend on commercial products like Tecnu—a combination of soap and mineral spirits—to get the oil off their skin before a rash can appear. Dr. Epstein says that ordinary rubbing alcohol does the same job at a fraction of the price. (And those of you who just can’t get yourselves to believe in the power of water alone can wash the area well with rubbing alcohol and then rinse with cool water after a pulling party.)

If you’re not sure what poison ivy, oak and sumac look like, go to http://www.poison-ivy.org/ for great photos of the nasty stuff in all of its guises.

And finally, if your specific problem is poison ivy vines climbing up a tree, click {HERE} for last year’s poison ivy advice, which included tips on handling this situation.

You Bet Your Garden Question of the Week ©2005 Mike McGrath

I'm using it on goldenrod, poison oak (a small shrub right now) & the Japanese Knotweed.

If you can find 30% acidity vinegar, this is the best to use versus the store brands with about 5% acidity.

Here's some more info....

Vinegar-Salt Spray: This combination is strong and will sterilize the soil where you use it. Be careful. This is not recommended for concrete areas as it will corrode the concrete. It's useful to give you control for spot application - get a veterinarian type syringe and inject solution into the center of what you want to get rid of. For larger areas use as a spray. This is more potent when done during hot weather, avoid watering the area for 24 hours.

Recipe:
1.Mix 1 pound of salt with one gallon of white vinegar.
2.Stir until the salt dissolves.
3.Mix in one teaspoon of liquid soap.
4.Spray the foliage thoroughly or inject into the crown. You may have to repeat in a few days.

The salt I'm using right now is the winter stuff I have left over.

~* Robin

Robin,

Thanks alot for that info on the vinegar and wow, what a potent combination that vinegar and salt must be. Is this the first time you have tried it? I don't envy you the Japanese Knotweed. Hope you have good luck with getting rid of those. I am going to look for a source for the stronger vinegar..thanks. :-)

NatureWalker- that looks like a winning recipe for killing weeds, the vinegar and salt spray. I wonder if it will kill kudzu? I don't care if nothing ever grows back along the fence line, but if I could stop the kudzu from crossing the fence line that would be a miracle!

hmstyl, I doubt vinegar and salt will kill kudzu, however...
You can stay on top of it by snipping the stems/leaves off (and bag them!). The root system will not be able to absorb energy when there is no topgrowth and by keeping the topgrowth clipped off the roots will eventually die.

Should you choose to use an herbicide you'll need to use one that has the ingredient "Triclopyr" in it. Triclopyr is the only herbicide that will kill the kudzu and NOT harm your other nearby plants or tree roots within the nearby area. "Brush Be Gone" Concentrate has Triclopyr and can be applied with either a paint brush or spray bottle directly to the kudzu. (For best usage, clip the kudzu to ground level and apply the herbicide directly to the cut stem.)

The above info is from previous research. I can't attest to it personally but have consulted with companies that use this technique and have success with it.

Hope this is helpful to you...I'd hate to see your place overtaken! (Course now, if it does, did you know you can make anything from jams/jellies to baskets with kudzu? Amazing, eh?)

Shoe.

Great advice in this thread.

We have the dreaded kudzu here in TX, too - or it's nearest relative.

Nearly killed a tree behind our property - I cut it off low and poured straight brush-b-gone on the stump. The part left in the tree was a good 2-3' above the ground. Three days later, the "arial" portion had roots back in the ground. Took all summer to finally kill it.