Are you collecting fall foliage to dress up a flower arrangement?
Don’t touch this plant!
Poison ivy is putting on quite a show as it turns beautiful shades of red and orange that highlight its white berries. Birds love the berries but most humans develop a rash — or worse — from touching the plant.
If you’re not sure how to identify poison ivy, click here for the clues that will spare you an itchy experience.
Leaves of three, let them be! … even when they’re red.
(photo of poison ivy in Schenley Park this week, by Kate St. John)
Fortunately I was blessed with an apparent immunity to the dreaded plant. In fact, a few summers ago I cleaned out an infestation in my next-door neighbors yard because they were afraid to go near it and were just letting it grow uncontrollably. Still waiting to be thanked for that good deed by the way!! 🙂
I am, however, much more cautious now that I have gotten to be in my seventies. I think us older folks sometimes may be tempting fate when we think we are still twenty and indestructible …
I’m also immune but cautious. I’ve been told that the immunity can go at anytime. Whenever I suspect that I may have come a bit too close, I wipe my hands with jewelweed leaves (if available) just to be on the safe side.
I got into some a little bit doing cleanup work with Paddle Without Pollution in Tarentum yesterday (the stuff along the mouth of Bull Creek). And I can get it pretty bad, but so far so good, no reaction. Of course I was wet with river water, so that probably helped, but I don’t like to tempt fate, because the last few times I’ve gotten into PI, my face swelled up.
Tecnu is the stuff that Scouts have found really helps, Rob.
http://www.teclabsinc.com/store/poison-oak-ivy
Available at most retail pharmacies.
Ketchup! I saved myself after a serious exposure by first using hand sanitizer, then following up with ketchup! and it worked! I wasn’t anywhere near home and a steakhouse was our next stop, so that’s what I did and it worked.