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Comment by anyonecancode | Hacker News Reader

We moved into a new place a year ago, and I was impressed by how lush one of the trees were. Then I noticed those leaves weren't those of the tree -- it was a massive, ancient poison ivy vine.

I spent a few weekends in gloves, long sleeves, pants, mask, and googles with a hacksaw. The vine was three vines twined around the tree trunk, each vine about the width of my lower arm. I cut out chunks of the vine at the base of the trunk, and it was immensely satisfying watching the vine's leaves droop and wither. A bit unnerving when some extra windy days scattered the dying leaves across the yard.

Anyway, now (well, not literally right now as it's winter) I just take the occasional morning or afternoon and pare back any new growths and dig up more of the buried vine roots. Not sure what, if anything, I can do about the dead vine still wrapped around the tree, but at least the tree isn't competing with the vine for sunlight and air anymore.

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I am working on remodeling my fireplace and decided that I wanted to use a solid wood mantel. Though I have some trees on my place that might work I went around locally to fireplace stores, rock and stone yards, etc to see what might be available and how much it would cost to buy one ready to install versus cutting one from my place and installing it.

In one local fireplace store they have a great selection of wood mantels from many varieties of hardwoods, all prefinished and ready to install. As I checked all of them available with the dimensions that would fit my particular needs, I found one oak mantel with a live edge front (bark still in place) and clinging to the bark all along the front of this mantel was a 2" thick (5 cm) poison ivy vine that had been cut to the same length. I told the owner what he had for sale but I don't know whether he ever removed that vine. The way it had all been finished looked like they treated it as an extra decorative element. I don't remember whether they were charging more for the mantel with the built-in irritant but it wouldn't surprise me to find that they were.

It seems to me that once you install that over a nice heat source it may start to liberate some of the oils and really cause an allergic reaction among anyone who buys that mantel without recognizing that vine.

For anyone trying to remove poison ivy from your property with the least amount of work, I have had luck covering it with 6" or more of straw hay and leaving that in place for at least one year. If you cut the vines and bushes to the ground and then cover the area leaving all the cuttings in place they will decompose. Just add some straw if any of it pokes through. It's a plant and so it needs light to grow. In a couple of growing seasons it will be gone.

Give it time and the vine will probably fall off on its own. I had a similar situation and it took well over a year before the tree was free of vines. Forcefully removing the vine can also hurt the tree.

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