Aug 8, 2003 4 min read

When you wrestle with nature, one slip up and you lose. My nemesis is poison ivy. It has at times gotten the better of me. Even once attacking in December after I removed my gloves to string a few Christmas lights in the bushes. But, for the most part, I win.

My strategy in venturing outside for yard chores is to dress for battle: old sweatpants, long-sleeve T-shirt, two layers of gloves (one set of latex slipped inside leather gardening gloves) and hat. While I work I keep in mind: leaves of three, leave it be. I don’t go near the stuff.

Once the chore is completed, I go to the basement, strip, throw the body armor into the washing machine, run upstairs and take a 15-minute shower.

This battle plan works. Deviations are not permitted, unless you are convinced, as I was, that all the poison ivy had been removed from the yard.

I was careless. I dressed for the muggy weather in shorts and sleeveless T-shirt. I hacked away at bushes. I shoveled and carted about 20 wheelbarrow loads of mulch. I sweated and swatted bugs. And I marveled that I didn’t once see a cluster of three leaves.

Of course, you don’t have to see the stuff for it to get you. Several hours later, blisters began popping out on my arms. By the following day every spot on my legs where I swatted a bug had a line of blisters.

How could this happen? I didn’t encounter one single poison ivy leaf.

Between applying topical cream to quell the itching, I turned to the Internet to find out why, oh why, I’m suffering.

This is what I discovered. One site explains that admitting your yard has poison ivy is as embarrassing as discovering head lice, but that it spreads so rapidly and can even be scattered by poisonous berry-dropping birds. The trick is to know, understand, respect and avoid the enemy because it will win no matter what.

Poison ivy and its poisonous cousins sumac and oak contain a chemical call urushiol. This resin is found in the roots, stems and leaves and clings to everything with which it contacts.

Say the family dog stretches out for a nap in the garden and just happens to plop down on a poison ivy vine. He’s not susceptible to urushiol but it stays on his coat. So you pet him and viola, it rubs off on you and a few hours later you – not the napping dog – have the blisters.

This urushiol stuff is so ugly that if not scrubbed off garden tools, it can get you more than a year later. I’m thinking that I had inadvertently put on urushiol-infected gloves that somehow eluded my scalding wash and destroy tactics.

So the rash goes away in a week or two. But what about the root of the problem?

After reading about 15 Web sites, I came to a conclusion. You can battle this stuff all you want. Invite a goat home, as one site suggested. Spray it with chemicals. Chop it down and starve the roots. Smother it with old carpeting and tarps. But it will still attack.

Landscaping.about.com offers this cautionary note. “Smothering entails cutting it back close to the ground, then placing newspapers, cardboard, old carpeting, tarps, mulch or some other covering on top of it. However, be aware that, even after they are killed, the plants remain toxic. So be careful in disposing of the roots of the dead plants after pulling back the smother agent (even if you’ve waited for years).”

Years! Obviously this is not a war to be won quickly.

And if you are still adventuresome or insane enough to purge the yard of the poison, the question then arises of what do you do with weeds. You don’t ever want to burn this stuff. If you think a skin rash is bad, just wait until you breathe in urushiol-coated soot.

The only suggestion experts make is to bury it. I would add that you should pray that it stays buried. Somehow I envision its tentacles reaching out from the deepest of graves, breaking through the surface and spreading its poison once again.

E-mail Editorial Page Editor Luanne Traud at ltraud@heraldstandard.com.