So, here’s the next installment of me requesting the SDMB’s help with an issue regarding my friend’s house.
Since the last thread, we’ve made tremendous progress. One of the tasks on the agenda now is restoring the west side yard.
Years ago, when Reagan was president, MTV was still playing music, and Montgomery Ward was still doing good business, this side of the house was a beauty: honeysuckle vines graced the fence, sharing the space with blackberries; stepping stones allowed one to meander between the front and back yards amongst gorgeous ground cover of various types; a small sitting area was nestled against the side of the house.
Fast forward to today: it’s now a neglected mess, and has been since the Bush Jr. years. I’d love to get started on cleaning it up and restoring it to its former glory, and almost did, until my friend informed me that that huge series of vines and shrubs I saw but could not identify were, indeed, poison oak.
This shit is EVERYWHERE. It’s grown clean up the side of two trees, both of which tower over 100 feet in the air. It is growing in random places all over the yard. It’s not as simple as just donning some good, durable gear and removing it by hand… but we also prefer not to have to call an expensive professional.
This is where I’m hoping y’all can help me. What is/are the best course(s) of action for eradicating these plants–without killing/poisoning the (still there) blackberry vines and bushes that’re about 3-4 feet from each given poison oak? Are there chemical treatments we can get from Walmart? Are there other household chemicals we can use? Are there more “natural” methods that don’t involve the harsher stuff? I’ve used concentrated human urine to kill certain weeds before; will this work on the P.O.? Any other ideas? I am either wanting to open/aerate the soil within a couple inches of the base of each plant, and pour something in - or - find something I can apply to the leaves/stems/trunks. I’m really hoping there’s something I can use that I can apply to the base of the tree-hugging ones that’ll travel throughout the plant’s extent and dispatch it, while leaving the trees relatively unscathed.
I’ve used spot spray Round Up on our Poison Ivy to good effect without harming the various plants it was intertwined with.
In previous years I had tried the protective gear and removal by (gloved) hand. Did not work well and no matter how careful got horrible Rhus dermatitis anyway. Chemicals it is.
Brush killer works better than regular weed killers. You can spot spray the leaves without killing nearby plants. When you get really close to other plants cut a slot in a piece of cardboard to use as a mask. The stuff is usually shriveled up in a week or so, so just push it back a little at a time if you want to keep the spray under control. You can also paint the stuff onto the leaves with a brush. Someone on the board once said that herbicides were more effective on the stems than the leaves, but you don’t want to go poking around under those leaves to find stems.
ETA: You need to use poison. You can’t just kill the leaves, they’ll come back. You don’t want to make contact with it in any way. Just poison it. It’s evil.
In some home improvement magazine a reader wrote in a tip to kill poison ivy using those little water tubes florists put on flower stems. Put roundup in the pod, cut the vine, and stick the end of the remaining vine into the pod. For poison oak, you may have to bend the stem down and bind it so that the tube stays upright.
Brush killer works well, but it’s very easy to kill other nearby plants. If you spray, do it on a day with no breeze at all. I’ve heard that a paintbrush works to control where the poison goes. Plan to throw it out when you are doing.
You don’t want to get close enough to the stuff to cut vines and stick the ends in anything. You don’t want to touch it. You don’t want to touch anything that touches it. You don’t want to touch anything that touched anything that touched it. You don’t even want to look at it for very long. Just poison it.
How quickly do you need to kill it? Because with the bigger stuff going up the trees you could cut the stem, remove or poison the root, and wait for the upper plant to die.
Talk to a professional. If someone has to do the dirty work of clearing it, why not find out how much it would cost to get it done well and without hazard to you? It might be the best money you spend on the project.
Goats. I used them to control poison oak and other brush on a few acres. They work extremely well. In this situation, you’d likely be borrowing some goats from someone who does this professionally (unless you have room there for a couple of goats to be penned permanently).
Even if you cut the vines and pull everything out, the roots are hard to get. 100 feet up trees? Oy. Back to point 1.
If you decide to go ahead and tackle it yourselves, do some research first on what to wear, how to treat exposure and even how to wash your clothes. Tecnu is a brand that has some good soaps and creams to help with controlling the spread of the oils.
Goats will eat the part of the plant above the ground, but they won’t kill the roots, which will re-sprout. They will also eat the plants you want. (although I know that there are individual goats who really enjoy poison ivy and will selectively eat it before other plants.)
I’d go with poison. I’d also plan to do most of it on a first pass, and then come back a few weeks later to do another pass, and repeat as necessary. Be aware that it’s hard to kill mature woody shrubs with poison, and you are definitely risking the nearby plants. But it’s worth it to get rid of poison oak.
On a side-note… if you DO come in contact with poison oak, I’ve had great success using DAWN dish detergent; and the sooner that you use it after contact, the better.
Take the bottle of Dawn into the shower with you, and LIBERALLY use it to scrub the affected areas. Not just once, either. The stuff that causes the itch is oil-based. Imagine you’re trying to remove the appearance of used motor-oil from your skin. After several lather-and-rinse sessions using a shower pouf (you might want to toss that away afterward), you should be clean of the agent.
Is there anything you can put on your skin before working with the plant? Maybe rub down with lotion or Dawn ahead of time so that the oil can’t bond with your skin?