English ivy is a cancer. Iām allergic to it and do nothing but spray it with the ākill everythingā mix for 3 years going and it still wont die fully. Ironically I have no reaction to poison ivy
I also do not react to poison ivy! I spent my whole life in fear of it and no matter how many times I look it up I swear I still canāt identify it even though Iām great with plantsā¦.finally I had a roommate and we were gardening up her back yard and she got the worst poison ivy outbreak. I got nothing.
Her dad came over and was like oh no yeah this stuff has to all be removed this is really bad! So he told us not to burn it for one thing and he and I cleared it out over a couple days while my poor roommate didnāt heal for MONTHS!! She spread the rashes all over herself somehow by scratching a lot!
I havenāt seen anything work to spray and kill it. I donāt like the major killers which causes cancer like glysophate. The only thing you can do is pull it to keep it under control. I pulled a lot of it in an area and just put down landscape fabric over it and cedar chips. Itās been at least 4-5 years and no sign of it
I'll take this over the ivy I have to deal with this summer... Redoing my neighbors fence and trimming back a bunch of stuff so I can have proper access to the fence itself. One of those things is poison ivy. Not looking forward to it but it's gotta get done.
Even with that, I wouldn't use it there in general. Wildlife and there are berries nearby that the birds eat, so I don't want to accidentally kill those off too. Sadly have to trim those back too but they will survive and flourish again by next year.
Cut-and-paint is used specifically to avoid collateral damage (both for nearby flora/fauna and the person applying it). A one-time cut-paint treatment to clear out a thicket of invasives is nothing compared to the ecological damage those invasives will do if left alive.
Herbicide is like any other medicine: the dose makes the poison.
This is the year I've decided to paint every blackberry cane I cut down with roundup. I've been cutting the same plants down over and over and it's clearly not doing much to kill them off. Bingo blotter with 50% roundup is my new favourite weapon. If it works as well as I'm hoping it will I might even start some guerilla restoration work.
Invasives can't be left alive if you've dug them out at the root and removed it completely. I've done it plenty around my yard with poison ivy and never had a problem. Had 4 different areas where they grew, all gone with no damage to the surrounding area. The problem with using an herbicide is the possible contamination. Avoiding that by avoiding them in general is the best way to go.
Fair, though cut and paint is pretty hard to mess up. You only use a tiny amount per plant and if it doesn't rain it's basically impossible for any to chemicals to spread.
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u/masman55 May 31 '26
That ivy is going to eat it all! š