Last summer I paid a bunch of people to come out and remove a bunch of ivy off my house, some of it being a particularly potent strain of poison ivy.
Its back and growing fast. How do I get rid of it and make sure it stays gone? I have proven to be very allergic to this batch, it gave me respiratory trouble for 3 days after pulling a small batch off my back door.
Unfortunately, there’s not a way to permanently remove poison ivy without also killing everything else that grows in that ground.
You can get this commercially. If you want something stronger, you can get it at the farm store, but there are precautions you need to take with pets, kids, wildlife, etc.
50/50 mix of Glyphosate (Roundup) and 2,4-D
(Roundup applied at 2x normal strength will do it, and will kill it down to the roots. I add 2,4-D as a bit of insurance.)
One thing I’ve seen suggested to remove poison ivy but not the other stuff, but never tried…
First off, since you’re so allergic, get someone else to do this. 
What you do is put on rubber gloves. Heavy duty “I’m washing dishes in boiling water for six hours straight” rubber gloves, not flimsy $5.00 for a box of 500 latex exam gloves.
Over that you don a pair of cotton gloves. You saturate the cotton gloves with Round-Up and grab a poison ivy/oak stem and pull it through your hands. You want to coat as much of the plant with Round Up as you can. Don’t pull the plants out of the ground. Yet.
Then you wait a few days to see what affect the Round Up has had, and repeat the process on the poison ivy you missed. Once you’ve killed it all you can pull the plants out of the ground - again wearing protective gear since it’s still got urushiol in it
Aside from the gloves, you should wear long pants, long sleeves, long socks under the long pants, and tape your gloves to your sleeves. Face mask, bandanna, etc to keep it off you as much as possible.
I’ve also heard that you can rent a herd of goats to clear your property, but they eat everything…
This is incorrect. Established poison ivy can be killed off easily, especially this time of year when it is actively growing. However, birds always drop seeds and you’ll get grow-back for a few years until you catch all the dormant plants.
I have a neighbor who has been quite successful with killing grass (Bermuda) by covering it with thick corrugated cardboard and covering that with soil/mulch. In her case, the end goal (aside from permanently killing the grass) was to create a new garden bed from a portion of her front yard.
im totally cool with killing everything in the beds against the walls of the house, we want to replant. it looks like that will prevent me from using the dirt for a year?
i guess i could pull the top soil out after the ivy is dead
Whatever you do, do NOT burn the dead ivy material. You’ll vaporize the urushiol, inhale it, and be in the hospital.
You can also use a few layers of thick black plastic if you want to nuke everything.
man i barely aggravated the dead stuff on the walls and it had me feeling like i couldnt breath for 3 days.
it also made someone who has always been resistant to poison ivy, have a horrible reaction to it on his legs. this is like some kind of super strain
I think you can use a sponge to apply it ot posion ivy
Ummm. I grew up on a farm and my mother is highly allergic to poison ivy. There’s nothing easy about killing poison ivy, particularly if you’re trying to not kill everything else that grows in the same area. The rootballs will continue to shoot after several repeated treatments of 2-4-D or roundup, and eventually will die, but it takes at least a year of repeated sprayings, and that’s never guaranteed. A ground control herbicide like imazapyr is the only way you can be sure you got it.
I use a regular sprayer like so:
I believe Round-up/Glyphosate only kills plants that are growing. E.G., spraying it on dormant Bermuda grass in the winter won’t (shouldn’t) kill it. Similarly, spraying it on bare dirt, then planting grass seed a few days or so later, should have no effect on the grass.
I think…
I beg to differ, expert farm boy. I’m highly allergic and have had a little personal war with the stuff for decades.
Glyphosate is a systemic amino acid inhibitor and 2,4-D is a growth hormone. Combined, they kill it down to the roots. I mix it strong, and it doesn’t come back.
Rendering the ground sterile is not necessary.
If you’re OK with nuking the beds, you’ll want to go to the farm store and get imazapyr. Follow the instructions on the bottle and to dilute it down, then apply it with a sprayer. Be sure to wear a mask and gloves.
When you’re done, you can then go over the same areas with a glyphosate that contains a surfactant (ask for 41 Extra, they’ll know what you’re talking about).
That’ll nuke it for sure.
Then, you can just dig out the dirt and replace it with nice, new top soil. Better for the beds and better for you.
i guess the question now is, is it better to kill it and collect it dry? or have someone come out and pull it up live and then kill the roots?
Kill it with herbicide, let it dry out, carefully collect just before the fall with gloves and long sleeves. Throw it all in the trash.
Once it is dead, it will not spread and holds on to the oil until you remove it. However, the oil is present even in dead plants, so care must be exercised. You can also just spade it into the ground and let it compost itself away.
(edit: if you pull it before letting the poisons kill it, you have the live roots to contend with … not good)
I have a Hazard Fraught blow torch, just need a hazmat suit and respirator, then we can solve this problem the fun way.
Note: Your neighbors might experience respiratory issues.
Correct, you have to wait for the ivy to emerge before spraying.