Poison Ivy

I learned something new and interesting today!

Someone on one of my gardening groups posted that Poison Ivy is a sign that the soil is acid, and recommended I test and lime as needed. She also pointed out that Poison Ivy grows slowly and recommended planting something faster growing in its place to displace it, and made a couple of specific suggestions that speak directly to our need.

We have quite a bit of Poison Ivy on our place, more in the woods and under trees, but it has pretty severely encroached "our" space while we were away these seven years. I have become quite expert at recognizing it and knew you really just had to pull it out, but hadn't given much thought to planting other things in its place.

Here in Oklahoma and points south grows a grass we call Bermuda grass. It prefers long hours of sunlight and propagates readily by seed and eagerly by rhizomes. Bermuda grass is tolerant of difficult conditions and is beautiful and green, making it very popular for lawns. It is also invasive and persistent, should you ever happen to want to clear a piece of ground and plant anything else where Bermuda grass is or has been. If you run a tiller through it, any little quarter inch piece of rhizome left in or on the ground will sprout into - you guessed it - MORE Bermuda grass! Till a piece of Bermuda grass up into a hundred little pieces and you'll get a hundred new plants.

This has also been my experience with Poison Ivy.

So, yep, I put on my makeshift, hillbilly hazmat suit and layers of disposable gloves up to here, pull every strand of hair back slick and tight under a hat or in a bandanna so it won't waft about to tickle and and make me want to touch my face, and set to work, pulling up endless networks of ropes and cables of Poison Ivy vines and roots. Quite a sight, I'm sure. Fortunately it comes up fairly easily.

I do not put the evil strands in my compost, because its poison is like alien space acid in its insidious persistence and I do not want to put it back in my garden in the form of compost on food I eat or feed to my loved ones, completely aside from the chance of moving orphaned pieces of Poison Ivy to a new, more fertile environment with its propagates-from-any-little-scrap-of-root ability.

Don't burn it either, because Poison Ivy's eternal molecules of poison attach themselves to particles of smoke and ash, and Heaven Forbid you should breathe any of it. Bad, bad, bad. No, when I pull Poison Ivy I put it in trash bags, tie 'em up tight, and place them in the trash can for the City of Mustang to carry off to do whatever it is they do with the garbage they pick up from us. Thank you City of Mustang!

So - I am extremely pleased to learn this about Poison Ivy, that it's an indicator of acidity in the soil, and am also grateful for the suggestions and tips on things to plant in its place.