Gardening help: Just found Poison Ivy in my yard.

[Carrots]

Hi,
We have lived in our house for 3 years now and I have worked very hard creating and organizing my flower garden. I love gardening, but this "gem" of a find leaves me wanting to blow up to the whole yard. (not really)

I was just in the yard enjoying my garden and looking at everything that is coming up when I happened to glance at my lacecap hydrangea. There, intertwined among the woody branches, were 4 sets of 3 leaves, the newest set was shiny the older ones were dull. I ran inside to look up photos of poison ivy and they are identical to the leaves on the right in this picture: http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/summer1.htm

What do I do? How do I get this thing out of my garden? Do I have to get rid of the hydrangea since the ivy has made it's home inside of it?

Help!!!

Thanks for your help.

Kristen

[Edensmum]

I would put on gloves and pull just the poison ivy, get the roots as much as possible and then get your butt in the shower as fast as possible and wash with dish soap to cut the oil anywhere you may have touched it.

[Twoboos]

Use Dawn dish detergent, and cool not hot water. Hot will open your pores and the PI oil will get right in there!

There is some Round-up type stuff for PI, I am not sure if it kills everything or targets just the PI, I will check our container. This is one thing that I brought out the big chemicals for - it was literally all over our yard.

GL, I hope you don't lose the Hydrengeas!! We just planted some today and I would be so bummed to lose them!

[kristenk]

When I found some in our front flower bed, I prepared for battle! :lol: I went back inside and got at least 2 plastic grocery bags that I put one inside the other. I put on 2 pairs of disposable gloves and a long-sleeved shirt. I went back outside and put my hand inside the doubled-up plastic bags and then used that hand to pull the poison ivy out of the ground. So, I grabbed the poison ivy, pulled and then pulled the top of the bag down so it was inside-out. All of the poison ivy stayed in the bag and I managed to pull it out by the roots. (If it hasn't rained lately where you are, you might want to soak the bed a little - and then wait a while - before you pull the poison ivy out.) When it was safely tied up in the plastic bag, I discarded my gloves, one pair at a time. I'm pretty sure I showered, too, b/c I was incredibly paranoid.

Really, though, removing it wasn't a big deal. It was easy to pull out by the roots b/c it hadn't had much of a chance to get established.

ETA: I really don't think you'd have to get rid of the hydrangeas. Just work slowly and make sure you get all of the poison ivy out of it.

Good luck!