I also purchased an old house with an over grown yard. What I found out was I was blessed with a husband who doesn't respond to poison ivy and thus can work on getting rid of it.
My allergist told me that you have to spray all the leaves until they turn white with the spray, but that was over 15 years ago.
What we do now is to spray the plants with a systemic spray, (which treats down through the root system)as soon as we see some or anything suspicious coming up.
To get rid of it originally, my husband spoke to the neighborhood association president and they agreed to buy spray if he would spray the neighborhood common areas. It took about three years of spraying several times a year, but it worked for many years. Now we just spray our yard, with the blessings of our neighbors on both sides, the back is an alley so it is totally legal to spray. With use a soil sterilizer, like round up and whatever you use, be sure that it says for whatever type of plant you are trying to kill off.
My most recent bout of poison sumac involved prednisone, and a long acting cortisone shot, plus cream. The rash literally went from my ankles to my forehead. I had it last fall and it was
this spring before my husband found the poison sumac. The case I had was so severe the dermatologist (my family doctor gave up on me and poison ivy when I was in my third month of the same bout several years ago)had to put his glasses on to make sure it was just an allergic reaction. This spring when my husband went in for a skin cancer check, both the doctor and nurse remembered my poison ivy case, and he told me to avoid the plants.
The problem was Poison Sumac can look like a birch tree if you just look at the trunk.
If you can afford it, you might get a professional to come in and remove the vines and trees that are poison, then keep a spray bottle of killer to get them in the begining.
I have heard that burning these plants can get it into your lungs, but that could be an old wives tale. |
