Execution orders successful
Aug. 1st, 2009 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI hate poison ivy. I know very well that everything has a place in the ecology, and birds apparently eat the berries without ill effect (and spread the seeds around, yuck.) However.
We lost a (not too bright) sheep years ago after she ate poison ivy. Though I'm not usually very sensitive to it, I can react strongly if it gets on skin normally covered by clothing. I got it under my arm once on a camping trip, which I certainly don't recommend and still don't know how it happened. Gary is a lot more sensitive to it than I am.
We have a lot of it here, though I've systematically exterminated large amounts as well. Two years ago I succeeded in killing very ancient and huge vines that were growing up the black cherry trees near the pasture gate. This week I applied the same technique to another huge vine on an oak tree near the barn. Little seedlings growing at ground level are easily killed by a spray of Roundup or something similar. But those massive plants with inch thick stems and huge crowns of leaves thirty feet up in a tree pose a different problem.
My method is to take a hacksaw and cut through the stem in several places near the ground. It's preferable to make two cuts an inch apart and remove a chunk of the plant so there's no chance of any remaining connection between roots and leaves. This is best done after some dry weather to avoid being sprayed by sap while using the saw. Then I wipe down the saw blade and my hands with alcohol, followed by a good scrubbing with soap for myself.
Thursday I cut the two stems on the condemned plant. It's been growing on an oak tree with a trunk nearly two feet in diameter, and leaning considerably so the ivy leaves have a grand exposed surface with lots of sun staring about ten feet up. Hopefully I got to it before the thousands of immature berries were far enough along to fall to the ground and germinate.
Just checked this morning, and the culprit is wilting nicely. Score one for Tivo, zero for Toxicodendron radicans.
We lost a (not too bright) sheep years ago after she ate poison ivy. Though I'm not usually very sensitive to it, I can react strongly if it gets on skin normally covered by clothing. I got it under my arm once on a camping trip, which I certainly don't recommend and still don't know how it happened. Gary is a lot more sensitive to it than I am.
We have a lot of it here, though I've systematically exterminated large amounts as well. Two years ago I succeeded in killing very ancient and huge vines that were growing up the black cherry trees near the pasture gate. This week I applied the same technique to another huge vine on an oak tree near the barn. Little seedlings growing at ground level are easily killed by a spray of Roundup or something similar. But those massive plants with inch thick stems and huge crowns of leaves thirty feet up in a tree pose a different problem.
My method is to take a hacksaw and cut through the stem in several places near the ground. It's preferable to make two cuts an inch apart and remove a chunk of the plant so there's no chance of any remaining connection between roots and leaves. This is best done after some dry weather to avoid being sprayed by sap while using the saw. Then I wipe down the saw blade and my hands with alcohol, followed by a good scrubbing with soap for myself.
Thursday I cut the two stems on the condemned plant. It's been growing on an oak tree with a trunk nearly two feet in diameter, and leaning considerably so the ivy leaves have a grand exposed surface with lots of sun staring about ten feet up. Hopefully I got to it before the thousands of immature berries were far enough along to fall to the ground and germinate.
Just checked this morning, and the culprit is wilting nicely. Score one for Tivo, zero for Toxicodendron radicans.
