This has me excited. No herbicide or hoping the vinegar works (which it often doesn't)! Do you know if this works on poison oak as well?

Thanks for the tip. All I have to do is get close to this and I'm itching. What brand of soap do you recommend?

This is wonderful!

I'm very allergic to poison ivy. I don't know if it's because of our mild winter or what, but our poison ivy is HUGE this year. Looks like it's on steroids. It doesn't affect DH so he's yanking as much as he can but It's terrible in the wooded areas.

I would like your soap recommendation too.

Thank you!

itching just reading this

I never knew the urishol could stay active that long in a dead plant. Thanks for the info.! I DO know that you certainly shouldn't burn the plants as the urishol will get released in the air & people like Jean & Vic can get the toxin on their skin that way.

Sorry to be ill and absent for awhile. I use Dr. Bronner's Liquid Castille soap.

If you use vinegar, Evan, be very careful of the overspray.

If the poison ivy is no longer young and green you can mix the soap and the water with some vinegar an salt but I'll have to locate the proportions. This, however, will kill everything and remain in the soil as well. Don't use it near wells and creeks.

Good old DB. You mention it and I can smell it.

Wow, that's a whole lot cheaper than the Ortho Tough Brush and Poison Ivy Killer that I've been using, and safer if it gets on me, too--thanks so much!

This morning I couldn't find my little paintbrush that I use to paint it on so I avoid good plants, so I got brave and donned knee-high rubber boots, long rubber gloves, long sleeves and long pants and pulled a big bag full of the stuff. It was choking out the milkweed plants that the monarchs love.
But I didn't get it all, 'cause I should've brought more bags. Also, at 9 am it was already too warm, so I had to wipe sweat off my face with my sleeve--NOT a good idea. I went back in the house, put my clothes (and gloves) to wash immediately, then washed ME.

Anyone have a good haz-mat suit they use for poison ivy?

We have a problem with poison ivy under the ancient (100+ years old) lilacs at our family cottage in western PA. We finally have MOST of it eradicated. I never knew the soap thing instead of the harsher chemicals I have used. Will try that this year.

A gardening friend essentially told me to not even bother to try to kill the plant if it is not actively growing. So late summer/ fall is not the best time to do this, spring is.

Thank you for letting me know about the urushiol being active years after the plant has died - I have been known to (carefully) saw a 1 inch gap in poison ivy vines (the woody ones growing up the lilacs) to try to kill them. I just leave them alone after that, but know i KNOW to leave them alone. Those big vines are nasty to kill. ~Jan

Last time I was in that poison ivy patch, I was using a weed whip to whack it, and I didn't realize until it was too late that the stuff was raining down on me.
NEVER do that!