Steep hillside covered with poision ivy:(

[Philip Lewis]

Slip and slide for neighborhood kids you don't like? :)

[HeyBub]

Burn it.

[Kevin J. Phillips]

When I was clearing Poison Ivy, I just put the clothes in the washer and dryer. The combination of detergent in the washer and heat from the dryer is enough to neutralize the stuff. After removing the clothes from the dryer, there will be black marks where the clothes came in contact with the ivy. My jeans and shirts looked like I had attacked them with a black permanent marker.

[rosebud]

Oren wrote: I think some are not affected as

Poison ivy doesn't have any effect on me. When I had to get rid of a bunch of it that had grown up into trees, I first cut the vines close to ground level. I applied poison ivy killer (some special stuff for woody plants) to the part that was growing into the ground. Over several months I watched for new growth coming from the ground and reapplied the ivy killer. Within one season it was all dead. I pulled the dead vines out of the trees the best I could. I was able to do this with no special clothing or gloves...very lucky I guess.

Bonnie

[rosebud]

Would it be practical at all to transplant the things you want to temporary locations for a year while you hire someone to take care of this? Obviously this doesn't include the maple tree.

[J. Clarke]

A word of caution--it's a "sensitizer"--some people can go years and years of handling it regularly with no effect and one day they just brush against it and land in the hospital. Wear protection when you can to reduce the chance of becoming sensitized.

[m Ransley]

I burned poison ivy, I was sick for over a year dont do it. If you have other plants to keep, wet the soil good , the next day oil your hands and arms,,put on long clothes and gloves and pull it out, its easy to do. Wash your clothes and shower. Roundup spray works but does not kill seeds and kills everything. If you wont pull it get a Spot Roundup-weed aplicator, it is basicly a plastic tube with a sponge attatched, you just touch the plant to kill with the pole. Mix it much stronger, Ivys leaves are oily and a bit resistant to Roundup. Have Fun.

[trader4]

You can cover the desirable shrubs and plants, then spray the entire area with Roundup. Make sure you use it at 3 to 5%. Don;t follow the advice here that said to use 3oz of concentrate per gallon. There is no std concentration for Roundup sold. Read the various bottle labels and you will find a variety of strengths sold. You can also search the internet and find the generic (glyphosate) sold in 3 or 5 gallon qty at good pricing. Erosion won't likely be a problem, because the dead plant root systems will still keep the soil in place for some time. You may have to do more than one application after waiting about a month to see what survives or continues to grow.

After it's dead, a lot depends on what you want to do with the area. If you want to clean it up and plant more stuff, then given that you are very sensitive to it, you may want to hire someone to do this part for you.

[Rapid]

what did it do to you?

[Norminn]

What is up the hill from your property? 8'x30' is covered by poison ivy? What other plants in the mix? (Trees, shrubs, flowers?)

I would be inclined - without seeing the property - to hire someone to mow or cut it back to the ground. Then go in, or have someone else, monthly with Roundup to hit the newly sprouting foliage. Persistance should eliminate it. I definitely would not risk doing it if I was sensitive to poison ivy, and would not touch anything used on it. The cut or mowed poison ivy should be removed.

Another option would be to have someone dig up the plants you want to save, dig out the poison ivy and everything else, add new topsoil and replace the keepers. If you spot poison ivy growing in again, kill it before it takes over.

[Banty]

Yeah. If it were me I'd have to hire someone, I'd have him or her rip everything out. Everything. Then I'd see what I could do to get more sunlight in the area if I could (might need to take down or cut back some trees), since PI loves shade. Then I'd set up some kind of rock garden on that hillside. Depending on the size of the hillside. I would even hire *that* out due to residuals in the soil.

Then keep brush-b-gone on hand to kill anything that comes back, letting it grown out to create some leaves first, since it's a translocating herbicide. With persistance, that does eventually rid the PI.

Banty

[PipeDown]

That's the important part. Once the main growth is cleared, you just need to keep an eye on it for about a year. Removing all new growth will starve the roots eventually.

I would add a cultivator to the mix. After clearing the vines, run a cultivator or hoe through the soil between the remaining plants to break up the roots and speed their demise. Mulching over that area will help too.

[Oren]

As soon as you cut it, weed-wack it: the oil becomes airborne, I would decline this option.

I think in the OP's case, it needs pulling up by the roots - saving the bulbs and others.

A truly infested area really does need constant attack.

Oren

They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction. Janet Reno, Attorney General, Friday, February 27, 1998

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Agree with the Roundup, but surely not cutting. That could make an allergic catastrophe. All the chopped up leaves blowing around would be a nightmare.

[Norminn]

Didn't suggest putting them in the blender. The OP is sensitive to PI, so a landscape maintenance person with suitable protection and know-how might be willing. If not, get a front end loader and get rid of the whole mess. OF COURSE, the OP would not stand around watching some nut with a weed whacker. Have yet to read of anyone dropping dead because they mowed some PI. Did get a child home from summer camp who slipped going down a hill and took a slide - sans sled - through PI. One trip to the doc and a supply of cortisone took care of the PI that covered her legs. For some strange reason, it didn't really bother her much. Had a blast at summer camp :o)

[Kyle]

My first thought was to remove the plants and perennials you want to keep, and then hitting the rest of the hill with a pre-emergent herbicide, but two problems crop up: (1) you can't kill anything within a radius of twice the radius of the maple (unless you want to take a shot at the maple, too...) and (2) where do you store the plants you want to save for a year until the pre-emergent is inactive?

The Wife and I had a similar situation with a hill behind our house. We hired a contractor to come in and clear out the dead azalea, the Chinese weed tree (that goes by a more crude name because of how it smells when it pollinates), two wild fruit "trees", but leave the holly tree and put in terrace walls. It was hugely expensive (not as expensive as digging out the hill installing a garage and extending the lawn over the top of the garage) but well worth it in the end: the hill is incredibly stable, we use the terraces for our vegetable garden, and it adds value to our home.

If you decide to go that route, do some research into local landscaping contractors, and pick the one you trust, not just the one who offers the lowest price because they could be cutting certain structural corners.

[greilly]

About the tarp....

I don't think this will do anything at all. The poison Ivy (a vine plant) will continue to travel along the ground until it finds some sunlight and then it will pop out. It won't die.

I rented this house once that had loads of it. I covered an area with an old tarp and dumped all my grass clippings on it all year, the damn vines worked there way to the edges and popped out and kept right on going.

I moved the next year.

[hallerb]

The hill is primarily poision ivy with a large maple I dont want to kill, some flowering plants and a bunch of bulbs... Theres these green milkweed, if you pinch them a kinda white milk comes out, originally that dominated the hill, its a excellent ground cover, then theres regular ivy and some plain old weeds.

My fear of the poision ivy has kept me away, i heard you can mix fll strength roundup with broadleaf weed killer, my try spot treating some of this.

I have no real wall just a foot high one I installed many years ago to make grass cutting easier. wish I could find someone to pull the #@$%^ then spot treat what reoccurs

[David Combs]

Alcohol? (does that qualify as "mineral spirits"?)

[John McGaw]

FWIW "mineral spirits" is the British English equivalent of "paint thinner" while "methylated spirits" would equal "denatured alcohol". Of course neither of those might mean anything in the original context...