Rash from Morning Glory - advice?

I've been trying to control the rampant morning glory in my yard - usually pulling pruning without gloves on - and I've managed to develop an allergy to it. Now I get a rash like poison ivy if it touches me, and of course its EVERYWHERE in my yard so it gets me when I'm not looking. It's too hot to wear a biohazard suit, but between the 'glories and the 'skeeters I'm afraid to go out in my own yard!

Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone have any good treatment options?

well, they contain sulfur, so maybe you have trouble with that. The seeds of certain varieties are like lsd but i have no idea about this. I guess your going to have to use a herbicide to kill them then let someone elae remove the dead plant for you.

Yes I get this from the type of Morning Glory that grows wild, We are trying to ban it from anywhere in UK as it is the most difficult plant to get rid of as you have found, you may find you are allergic to many other plants but wont be as bad as you have right now, this is because you are handling so much of it while trying to get rid, these plants also strangle everything they grow into as a support, the best thing you can do is to protect your skin from contact as much as you can, either go fight the war with this when the cooler times of day or night are there and you can wear a long sleeved T shirt with the cuffs tucked into gloves, even if it means having a large rubber band around your wrist to stop the sleeves from ridding up, using a sun lotion or after sun on your face but dont rub this right into your skin may also help and have a cooling effect IF the plant juice does go on your face, but the best results for you would be to just cut off any stems you can find about an inch from the ground, dump all the stuff you remove and if possible burn it or you will spread the seeds everywhere and these will just regrow again the following year, after cutting it all down, get an old paint brush and hand paint a strong weed killer onto the leaves and stems left at ground level, this painting will stop the killer blowing onto ant other plants close by, early next spring as you find any new growth come through, repeat the painting of the weed killer and you WILL eventually get rid of this nightmare plant for good, the killer gets taken down to the roots of the plant and either kills it or weakens it, it really will take you a few years to get rid all together IF you have tons of it, but spring really is the best time to paint it with the killer before it gets the chance to make a lot of top growth. I am also allergic to Christmas trees and anything of that family, some Marigolds or the sap from, and various other plants too, but it dont stop me growing them, I just learned like you, the hard way to protect myself when working with them. Good Luck, hope your skin feels better soon, By the way, dont get sun on your skin when you work with plants that harm your skin or it makes it worse. WeeNel.

Well, that explains it! I'm allergic to sulfur in foods, so it's no wonder rubbing morning glory all over my skin ever weekend would eventually get to me.

As for the eradication plan, my yard is nothing but invasives of various sorts. As long as I pull the vines up by the roots in the middle of the yard, the other invasives start earlier in the spring and generally out-compete it. I just have to keep my eyes peeled for the stragglers threaded through everything else. My current plantscape in Philadelphia is a riot of violets, persicarias, dayflower, spiderwort, a pokeweed tree covered with hyacinth bean and grape tomato (very pretty!), spiderwort, and something grape-like I haven't identified yet. My neighbors all have concrete and I inherited the invasives, so I'm not being horribly irresponsible. :)

The biggest problem for me at the moment is that I have some hideous chain link fence where I allowed the morning glory to get a foothold this year and if I don't cut it back every week it will bulge out and win the war. The stragglers out in the yard aren't as juicy as the healthy vines on the fence - they don't actually leave welts if I brush them. I guess this year I need to get thoroughly covered, pull up all the vine roots along the fence, and tear it all out. Then next year plant something equally invasive in its place to cover the fence and minimize my swimming in it. (malabar spinach, maybe? more hyacinth bean?) If that doesn't work I'll probably have to resort to painting weed killeron the cut stems. :(

Thanks for all the great info and advice!

the problem for you is if you leave just a tiny bit root in the soil, you get another plant, that is why I suggested a killer that the plant takes down to the roots, I dont use weed killers myself to be one hundred percent honest, but there is always some plant that you just cant get rid of any other way and as a last resort, so good luck. WeeNel.

cut the plants down then paint on a roundup type chemical. By painting I mean use a bruch and using full strenght, straight out of the bottle paint the ends you cut. This will alllow the plant to take the chemical down to the roots and BAM no more plant. Now, if it's really out of control you'll have to do this multiple times but it can be done.

That answers another question. I have a compost pile full of morning glory and I've been wondering whether it would grow back from the bits or whether it was ok to spread as long as it didn't have seed pods. I guess I'll have to dump it. What a waste! I really hate to resort to nasty chemicals, but I'm not crazy about the alternative either...

My Morning Glorys have runners and they are all over the yard, but I have yet to see one bloom. I never realized this plant was hated so much! Here I thought that
the fact that it hadn't frozen during the winter I must have been doing something right! This one is easy to pull up, it doesn't go deep, but it is in my trees.The vines are heavy and I'm surprised that they even GET in the trees!
I'm hoping to see those beautiful blue flowers but I haven't seen any. How do I get it to bloom? I'm in North TExas and it gets plenty of sunshine!

Oh pooh & bother, after dealing with lots and I mean lots of Buffalo Burr and Burr Grass the last few days I was all excited to see a volunteer Morning Glory under the apricot tree just yesterday. I guess I shouldn't have been so happy!

Morning Glories are not universally hated. It's more a love/hate thing. I actually think they're beautiful and they're really great in places with poor soil where it's hard to grow most flowers. Butterflies and humminbirds love them. If I weren't allergic, I would be happy to keep my wall of morning glory and just keep trimming it back to a manageable size every weekend. I used to envy people in So CA who had giant bouganvillia and morning glory over their fences. Since the winters in PA freeze them dead, they don't get quite so out of control as they can in the south.

I would guess, Ladybeetle, that your morning glories are not blooming either because your other plants are strangling the roots (you have well established lawn?), they're not getting enough water (I had this problem in San Diego), or the very young shoots are not getting enough sun (if they're trying to grow through foot-high plants, you may get very thin tough vines with few leaves and no flowers). - or perhaps they aren't actually morning glories? There are a couple other vines that look a lot alike.

Don't kill your morning glory until you think it through! (But don't wait until it's a monster to decide you don't want it either.)