Hey, internet peeps! Since many of you are embarking on brand-new gardening adventures these days, it occurs to me that you may be unfamiliar with...
*cue scary music*
...POISON IVY!
*cue scary music*
...POISON IVY!
And of course I have no photos even though I thought I did, so here’s one from Wikimedia Commons. 
Poison ivy, as you almost certainly know, is not an ivy. It’s actually in the cashew family. (You can also get the rash from eating cashews or handling the shells if you’re sensitive to it!)
Poison ivy is an aggressive climbing vine, and if you are one of the unlucky majority, touching it will give you “contact dermatitis” aka an itchy rash from hell.
Absolutely, positively, if you learn to ID no other plant in your life, if you live in the East, learn to ID poison ivy. (In the West, learn your ID poison oak.) It takes a bit because they’re kind of generic looking leaves, but once you get the fear of it in you, you learn.
A few myths to clear up—once you have the rash, scratching it will not spread it. The rash is caused by the oil on the surface of the skin, the blisters are plain ‘ol pus, they are not the oil. BUT.
BUT it is a very persistent oil, so if you have not scrubbed the hell outta the afflicted area, you may be moving oil still persisting on the site around. I highly recommend Tecnu scrub to remove the oils.
Scrub your hands if you may have contacted poison ivy. You’re doing that anyway these days, so just pretend the plant coughed on you.
Wash your clothes if they’ve been out in it. Scrub your boots if you must, or keep dedicated Tromping Boots.
Next up, if you run jewelweed on the rash, you have encountered the placebo effect. Placebos frequent may work, so I’m not telling you not to do it, I’m just saying doubleblind studies don’t back up the jewelweed thing in the lab.
(Sigh. I had a very nice jewelweed patch and it gradually petered out. Kinda sad, that’s actually a nice plant, but one of those “you have it everywhere or nowhere” plants.)
Humans and nonhuman primates get poison ivy rash, no other animals seem to. I assume that somewhere this means a scientist gave a chimp poison ivy. Rude.
If your dog runs through poison ivy and you hug the dog, you will absolutely get it, though. Yay?
Now, the bit we are all reacting to is called “urushiol.” It doesn’t like humans. Humans return the favor. It’s an allergic reaction, which means that you can indeed get it badly enough to send you into anaphylactic shock, although most of us have to work at it.
Every single part of the plant contains urushiol, which means that it can give you a rash before it has leafed out. So if you’re inclined to touch stuff in the woods, you will need to learn to recognize the stems.
This is easy, fortunately! A poison ivy stem climbing a tree is bristling with roots. It looks like a millipede crossed with a mustache. Do not touch the super hairy stems.
AND urushiol persists even after the plant dies! Never compost poison ivy. Never mulch poison ivy. Never chip poison ivy. And whatever you do, under absolutely any circumstances whatsoever,
NEVER BURN POISON IVY.
NEVER BURN POISON IVY.
I would make those words ten feet high and pulsing neon scarlet if I could. Because guess what? Urushiol aerosolizes beautifully. And it carries in smoke like a CHAMP.
The smoke will give you lesions when it touches skin, but that’s minor. Guess what happens when you inhale it.
Yup.
Yup.
You will, if you are fortunate, merely spend some time in the hospital. If you are not fortunate, you will become a cautionary tale. This is a potentially fatal experience.
(If you are very fortunate, you just be sicker than snot at home.)
Honestly, even if you unfollow me now and go about your life forever without reading another one of my tweets, books, comics, whatever, as long as you remember to never burn poison ivy, I will count our interaction absolutely well spent.
So how do you get rid of it? Well...everyone has a method. Goats and chickens dispose of it nicely, though be careful touching the goat or drinking the goat milk. (Haven’t seen trouble with eggs.) You can smother it out with cardboard, in an area you don’t plant to dig up.
But it grows fast and guess what? It loves CO2! Loves it to pieces. Way more than most plants. So climate change means more poison ivy! As if you didn’t have enough to look forward to!
My usual method is, when I see a leaf pop up here or there, to delicately clip the stem, carry the leaflet still in the clippers (leaves of three...) to a designated dumping spot in the woods outside the fence, and stop it off. I ferry small amounts around a lot.
I am generally very iffy on poisons, but if you want to hit it with something in the chemical arsenal, I honestly won’t say boo to you about this one. Be careful, be responsible, but you know what you’re up against.
I have it throughout the woods and it pops up in the garden, and mostly I control it by just cutting it back when I see it, but I’m an adult with very good ID skills. Little kids, way more of a problem.
I am not in a position where I can possibly eradicate it, but I’ve got it under control and every now and again, I spot a leaflet, grumble, and go cut it back. Armed truce is as good as it gets. Every few years I may accidentally step in some and get a rash ankle.
Anyway, stay safe out there! And learn to ID it. It’s worth the effort.
(Also, as my Dr told me once years ago, “WE CAN FIX THIS NOW” after I had come in for a physical and mentioned it offhand. They give you steroid shots. If you’re in agony, medicine can help.)
UPDATE: I stand corrected!
Yes! Some people do not react. Yet. That can literally change at any time with exposure, though, like many allergens, so be careful.
