Poison ivy? Is there a botanist in the house?

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K

Kias

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Jul 31, 2009
665
NW Ohio
Went out to pull the ivy that was slowly strangling one of ours trees. Chopped and pulled out a 6 foot section and then looked at the leaves. I didn't think poison ivy could grow so big, but a little research and I found the dreaded climbing poison ivy. 20 to 30 feet, killing trees in the process.

Any way, in trying to figure out what it is, it seems impossible to identify it to me. Guess my brain doesn't work like that. "it may or may not have notches, it may or may not have ridges, it may or may not be glossy" seriously? Grrrr...

Luckily, I do believe I'm one of the 15% of Americans that is not allergic to urushiol. That involves a story in sixth grade of a ranger pointing out poison ivy and a few of us who wanted some time off of school. I did not miss one day, everyone else did...

Any way, here's the tree it's killing, and a closeup. Let me know if you need to see it from another angle or something.

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If there is a botanist out there, and you'd like to come over and look at it, just go down that road to the house that may or may not be white, may or may not be a colonial, and may or may not have a really long driveway. The plant may or may not be in the backyard.

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I did wash up with soap and water with a ten percent chlorine rinse. :shock:

Still have the same clothes on though. Should probably throw those in the wash, huh? It's been about two hours now, no sign of anything other than the heebyjeebies, and I get that if I find a tick on me. Only lasts about five hours though.

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Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac, all share one thing, you can identify it by the leaves.

Golden rule: "Leaves of 3 leave it be".

If the vine has groups of 3 leaves then it is one of the 3 Ivys that cause an itchy rash in most people. If the vine has evenly spaced leaves all over and not grouped into 3 at a time then it is not an Ivy.

Her is a link that will help you see if it ia an Ivy: http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view

Hope this helps

P.S. You should not wash poison ivy, oak, or sumac with soap and water, the stuff soap is made of will basically coat the ivy oil and make it worse, instead rinse well with warm water several times before using soap, DO NOT RUB while rinsing, that just spreads the oil, and works it deeper into your skin.
 
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Thanks! I was all over that site this morning. I'd say it is definitely poison ivy, or not. Either way, I seriously don't think I'm allergic to it.

But of course, I was topping up the pool, and forgot about it. So now it's overflowing and I'm dealing with that. Lol

I am getting a really good backwash out of the deal though.

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Ok, got the water level down to, "not overflowing" Back to getting that ivy out. Gotta find some gloves.

Been about four hours now. How long does that stuff take to react on your skin?

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Kias, it's true that some folks just aren't allergic to it. I'm one of them. I've had friends break out in terrible rashes, but I myself have never been afflicted. Thank goodness! I don't know what prevents some of us from being bothered, but I'm pretty happy about it!
 
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Yeah, I do believe I'm also one of them. I just yanked out this, then found baby birds up in a nest in the ivy. So I let them be. The stuff up there should die off since it's no longer connected to the ground. But I still have to figure out how to get it out of the ground. It's growing right in the middle of a clump of trees. It's killed two trees already. Looks like it just literally squeezed them to death.

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I used to be non-reacting to PI, I could rub the stuff on my skin not problem...fast forward ~10 years and I got a good dose of rash from it. My (non-expert) understanding is that people sensitivity to PI can change, so it is not ever a good idea to assume you are not allergic year to year.
 
Hubby and I are cleaning out a backyard jungle of a home we bought that had been vacant for 6 years. There were vines growing up and between the privacy fencing and we've spent several days clearing the yard. I did notice a small poison ivy plant up by the house, but didn't think the vines we were removing from the fence were poison ivy. The first day we worked on removing the vines and mulberry trees growing up through the fence, neither of us had any reactions and DH is very allergic. About a week later we went back to work on it and both of us came away with rashes several days later... mine later and much less of it than him.

I've never had poison ivy before. I helped my mom remove some from a hedge when I was a teenager and we worked at it for a good hour or two and I never got it. She made me bag up all of the debris because she always got it terribly, but I never reacted from it. My brother's the same way... sat it in a patch of it unknowingly in a summer camp and never broke out.

So I'm not sure if we got into poison ivy or something else. I will have to take a closer look at the vines the next time we work there and see if there was some hiding among the vines we were removing... or maybe the vines we removed were poison ivy, but much larger than I've ever seen in this area... and I believe there were five leaves on the vines we were removing.

I would be careful .... even if you think you're not allergic... you might find yourself getting it, you might just not react as severely unless you get a larger quantity of the oil on your skin. And although my rash was nothing compared to my Hubby's.. it's wasn't fun!
 
This day is turning out awesome! Find out I might die from poison ivy, I over filled my pool, my ta shot up to 130, I've put 9 cups of chlorine in the pool today to keep it at 7ppm, usually 2.5 cups a day, I only have two cups of acid in the house, and a pin leak just appeared in my brand new back wash hose!! Aggghhhh!

But my cya is finally down to 40, from the 60 I started this year with! Silver lining?

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